Subcasters
by gythia
Summary: A sequel to Planet of the Sith. A new technology blurs the lines between news, entertainment, and exploitation- and they're out to exploit Luke. Warnings: violence and noncon situations. Time Yarns crossover.
1. Chapter 1

Bright Lady of the Sith

Chronology note: Bright Lady of the Sith is the first in the Subcasters series. This story begins immediately after the events in the New Sith War trilogy.

The glittering panorama of Coruscant stretched out before her. A bright red and orange sail glider swooped down from the top of the palace roof, dancing madly around the spires of the glass and metal buildings. It was Anakin Solo, Jedi apprentice and seven year old daredevil. He was followed by the blue sail of Jacen's glider and the yellow and green one piloted by Jaina, who was showing off by literally flying circles around her twin brother.

Anakin had invited Dije to go sail gliding with them, but she was in no mood for such lighthearted fun. Not with the death of her best friend Tal so recent. She had been on Coruscant for four days. Master Skywalker had spent a few hours each day reviewing what he considered the basic skills of a Jedi, evaluating what she had yet to learn. He had not said much yet about the course of study he planned for her. Dije was patient, however. Sooner or later they would leave the capitol and go to the academy on Yavin 4.

The clump of booted feet signaled someone approaching, but Dije did not turn around. Whoever was on this landing platform of Imperial Palace was either someone who belonged here, or someone so dangerous that all the guards, patrol droids, security monitors, and Jedi couldn't keep him out, and it would be pointless for Dije to resist. The booted man drew level with her.

"I die a little every time they do something that risky. I know they have the Force, but I'd rather wrap them in woolamander pelts until they turn twenty."

"You must be Han Solo. Think I met you at the victory celebration, but I shook so many hands, and all I was really thinking about was trying not to accidentally zap any of them. Afraid the names and faces are all jumbled up."

"Oh, well not zapping is good." Han clasped his hands behind his back. Dije noticed he automatically swung his right arm a little wide, as if still compensating for a gun belt that was no longer there.

The sail gliders descended into the permanent shadow of the deep building canyons. "I hope there's a safe route back up here from the landing zone. From what I've heard, the lower levels of Coruscant are more dangerous than any flying sport."

"There's already an air taxi waiting for them at the bottom," Han assured. "You've heard right."

"I'm thinking of going out this afternoon. What levels or sections should I stay away from?"

"You're worried about random street crime? Aren't you a Dark Lady of the Sith?"

"Doesn't necessarily mean I'm the biggest baddie on the planet. In fact, I know I'm not, because Skywalker is here."

Han chuckled. "I thought you Sith were mostly hiring yourselves out as bodyguards, when you aren't trying to take over the galaxy. You wouldn't make much of a bodyguard if you couldn't handle an average Coruscant tapcafe."

"The places in the Corporate Sector where it's fashionable to have a Sith Guard, my tattoos would keep ordinary thugs away. The only people who would attack would be real assassins."

"That's not always a plus," Han commented, but his voice sounded distracted. He had spotted an air taxi with brightly colored sails folded into its cargo bed. The taxi was rising through the traffic. "Listen, Dije. I know you're here to become a Jedi and all that. Luke believes in you. So does Leia."

"Really? I didn't think she liked me."

"She doesn't. But she does trust you. She says you proved yourself. But, well, your ways aren't our ways. The rest of Jux's mercenaries, other than you and Kerruke, are being shipped back to your planet in a prison ship specially equipped with ysalamiri. I haven't seen any official reports—I'm retired from the General business just as much as from the smuggling life—but I've heard some disturbing things about how your people act toward each other. I heard the crew had to shut down the prisoner galley and give the mercs their rations in their cells because there was a fight every single time more than about four of you guys got together. And one of you Sith got skinned alive. By other Sith. With a plasform spoon, apparently."

"Men," Dije snorted. "Can't live with 'em, can't disembowel them and use their guts for viol strings."

"See, now that's precisely the kind of comment I don't want you to make in front of Anakin. Got it?"

"Sure."

"Maybe you can make some friends your own age at the Academy."

"I'd like that," Dije said, with a sudden pang as she thought of Tal.

The air taxi was landing, and Dije and Han walked to the wall to make room.

"I'm not going to tell you to stay away from my kids. I know there aren't that many people at the Academy. And of course Luke will watch out for them. But I don't want to hear the words Anakin and Sith in the same sentence, understand?"

"Don't think he knows," Dije replied. "And I'd just as soon keep my ethnicity private, at the Academy and elsewhere. I've told Master Skywalker that, too."

The taxi doors opened, and the three Solo children jumped out, pulling their gliders out of the back and rigging them back up to go again.

"So you just want to be an ordinary student?"

"Someday I'm going to go home. And when I do, I can't be known as a Jedi. Wouldn't last an hour. I can't let it be common knowledge that I'm going to the Academy."

"Well that's too bad, because you're out here in the open air talking about it. I guarantee you there are paparazzi taking our picture right now. From one of those buildings over there, or maybe a camera up on that billboard." Han gestured to a holographic display of the latest in open- car air speeders, projected from the side of a building.

"What are they? Some kind of assassin?"

"Only of character. Reporters, Dije. Celebrity hounds."

Anakin rushed over to them. "Dije, it's really fun! Try it! Come on!" He grabbed her hand and pulled her over to the newly readied sail gliders.

The air taxi took off, to wait for the children at the bottom again. From the taxi's passenger seat, Threepio's distinct wail faded into the distance.

"Come on! These gliders were made for grownups. You and I can share one, and not be too heavy. You'll like it!"

Dije glanced at Han, expecting him to glower at her to stay away, but he shrugged one shoulder, as if to say, one ride can't hurt too much.

Anakin was already attaching an extra safety harness to her. Dije gave in to the moment. When Anakin was strapped in, he tugged her toward the edge and she jumped with him.

They soared out over the steep sides of the buildings. Wind whipped in her hair and clothes, and made a white rushing sound all around her. They passed close to a cluster of antennas and Dije shrieked—and then whooped as she passed a hawkbat on the wing. Carried on the wind, they whizzed past windows and dodged air speeders.

The spikes of roofs rushed up at her. Then they were past them and the sun left her arms. It turned cold, and the traffic got heavier. She screamed as they startled a winged flying alien that turned a corner suddenly, and then laughed at the way his eyes got huge when he saw them. It was her first laugh since Tal's death. When they touched down near the air taxi with a rustle of bright sail, Dije shouted, "You were right! Let's go again!"

Ongreya landed her ship on the cheap side of the spaceport. She shut down the engines and all nonessential functions and pressed the button to pop the hatch, letting in fresh air. Or, reasonably fresh air, planetary air, contaminated with the usual mix of fuel residues that any large spaceport had at its docks. She unstrapped and climbed down the ladder, activated the computer, and put on her subcasting hat. There was a holocam in there, but it passed well enough for a piece of gaudy fashion, especially after she assumed human form. The holocam was mounted on gimbals that kept the picture relatively steady when she walked.

She tested the camera's signal to the computer. All was well. Then Ongreya checked the Hobgoblin; the computer was transmitting the subcast to the holoweb. She was live.

Ongreya pushed the button on the computer that played her signature song, alerting her subscribers that her subcast was coming on. Most of them probably recorded it, since it came in at unpredicatable times, but a few of them might be watching right that moment.

"This is Ongreya the Psy Healer. I'm following the call of a troubled couple. Let's see where we've landed." She exited her starship and turned from side to side as if scenting the wind. "They're arguing right now. Let's drop in on them."

Ongreya walked through the landing area, ignoring the jutting trusses of cargo ships and the clank of loaders. She flagged down a passing speederbike-riksha and hopped into the canopied passenger seat. The driver flew at a tremendous pace, which was a very good thing because otherwise the cityscape would have been a little boring; it looked like most any other ordinary city, with midrise buildings and lots of moving billboards.

Ongreya directed him, "turn here, now turn here, up there, now this way."

The driver was annoyed, asking her several times for the address where she was going, but Ongreya did not know. She only followed the call.

Ongreya had him stop at an apartment building, and paid him off. She walked up the corridors, and she could hear shouting through the walls. "Hear that, folks? I think that's our new patients."

She knocked on the door and a male Whiphid answered it.

"I'm Ongreya the Psy Healer. Your pain called out to me across the stars. I can help you."

The Whiphid looked suspicious for about four seconds. Then his eyes changed, responding to Ongreya's Psy Healer power. He backed away from the door and let her in.

"What the narik are you doing?" the female Whiphid shouted. "Don't let that human in here! You, are you a cop?"

Ongreya turned her attention, and her power, on the female. "I'm Ongreya the Psy Healer. Your pain called out to me across the stars. I can help you."

"Go the kriffing narik away you—" In the middle of her tirade, the female Whiphid suddenly made an oh sound as if punched. She blinked and shook her head.

"Invite me to sit down and talk," Ongreya directed.

"Of course. Sit down," said the female Whiphid. "Would you like some metchel bark tea?"

"Certainly, thank you."

When they were settled, Ongreya asked, "What is the problem between you?"

"I'm not a real Whiphid in my hearts," said the male. "We were pledged as children, as our parents chose, but I'm in love with a Twilek."

"You're not in love, you oaf," said the female. "You're just another fan." She turned to Ongreya and explained, "He thinks he's in love with a dancer at the Humpkin Club. I bet she doesn't even know his name."

"Have you two ever talked about this?"

"Never," said the male. His mate nodded affirmatively.

"That is why you need the Psy Healer. I help people face the truths they don't want to face. That is the path to healing. Tell me all about it."

For the next half hour, the Whiphid couple poured out all their dirt. This was the heart of the subcast, the part that Ongreya's subscribers paid money to hear. All the salacious details of their lives went out to the listening ship, and up to the holoweb, and out to the subscribers.

When they seemed to be winding down, Ongreya said, "I can heal your hearts, and make you feel like a true Whiphid again. All you need to do is let me in. Every being has natural mental shields. Some are stronger than others, but everyone has them. They are like a ship's shields, except most people leave them up all the time. Imagine you're on a ship's bridge. You're pressing the button to lower the shields, so the doctor can land and heal you. That's all you have to do. Just lower your shields and let me in."

The Whiphid male blinked and shuddered, and Ongreya was in his mind. She did not remake him, no, that was not her calling. She merely removed the barriers that kept him from seeing the truth. The truth was, he did care about his mate. The stripper was more like an addiction than a potential lover.

When Ongreya was done, she backed out of his mind, and he shivered. "Now turn your shields back on. Press the button again and toggle them back on."

"Oh, I've been such a fool!" the Whiphid male wailed. He placed his forehead against his wife's and said, "I love you, Werana. I love you! Will you forgive me?"

"Of course I will! I'm so happy! I love you too!"

"My work here is done," said Ongreya. She left the apartment and walked back to the street. "This is Ongreya, signing off from another successful healing." She shut off the holocam.

"That was a nice, easy one." She was no longer narrating her subcast, but commenting had become second nature to her. Some of her healings took many sessions, over several days or even weeks. The difference was not necessarily in how complicated the problem was, although that did seem to affect how long it took to talk it all out. But some people were less susceptible to her power, less ready to trust her. She had to work at those sometimes. But most people yielded to her right away.

She returned to her ship and checked her messages. Mostly letters from fans. One death threat for the heresy of using a sacred tune for her theme song. It was a simple little ditty, "Ongreya is healing me/ She takes away my sorrow/ The Psy Healer is helping me/ She gives me hope for tomorrow." Ongreya used the music because it was catchy. She had not even realized it sounded so much like one of the sacred Psy Healer chants until she had already started using it and it was part of her brand, and was too late to change it. As always, she shrugged off the threat. Even Ongreya herself did not know where she was going next, or when. That made her hard to track down.

Dije moved nervously along the dingy corridor in Coruscant's lower levels, doing her best to project an air of confidence and dangerousness, to ward off street predators. She found a smelly bar and went in. She never did this at home. On Sith-ta she could always get strobe at a neon, or if she wanted something harder she could go to someone she knew. She had never, ever tried to buy from strangers, but she was desperate now. None of the people she had fallen in with ever had anything around but the occasional Gizer ale, and that was Han, not Luke. Dije was fairly sure there would not even be any beer at the Jedi Praxeum.

She hadn't had a hit for a week. She had no idea who to approach, or how. She only knew she couldn't buy it in a store, not on Coruscant. She had asked the droid. Six million forms of communication, and he didn't know what strobe was. So she was going to have to play it by ear. Dije winced as the cliché reminded her of her Uncle Thodvexer and his horrible fiddling.

She ordered a beer with the last of the paltry credits from her and Tal's pay from the slave ship. Naturally, she had not been paid for her service to Dokhon Jux. If she did find a seller, she was going to have to get creative to buy anything. Well, she was fairly good looking, if one didn't mind the facial tattoos. Maybe she could trade.

Dije opened the window of her mental castle and began listening to the stray surface thoughts of the bar patrons. Nearly every being of every race, except the Sith—and the Jedi—projected thoughts constantly. The Force-sensitive either learned to tune it out or went mad. It did not take her long to hear one of the words she was listening for: ryll. One of the less valuable forms of spice, originating off Kessel, ryll was a perfectly acceptable party drug. Nobody around here seemed to have any knowledge of strobe. Spice would do.

Dije located the thinker, a being from Malastair with multiple eyestalks. She gave up on the idea of seduction. But she was still going to get the kriffing spice somehow. She brought her beer over to his table and sat down without waiting for an invitation. He swiveled his eyestalks in her direction.

"I want some."

"Some what, human?"

"Ryll."

He waved his eyestalks. "You are mistaken. I am not a dealer in spice. I am a law abiding citizen of the Im—the Republic."

"Imperium," Dije echoed his thought. "And I distinctly heard you think about how much you were looking forward to having some ryll tonight."

The being looked at her again, taking in her Sith bodysuit and cape. "Jedi. Stay out of my mind."

"I'm not in your mind. I would never try to influence someone's mind in a business transaction. Your thoughts are sloshing all over the room."

"Alright, alright. I have some ryll. What do you want? I don't know the real name of my dealer, or where he lives or anything. I'm nobody."

"I told you. I want some ryll."

"The Crash Corner Café. Two levels down. You can't miss him—he's the one with the Defel. Now leave me alone!" The Malastairian jumped up and fled, one eyestalk looking back over the top of his head at Dije.

The Crash turned out to be aptly named. It was fashioned from the bridge of an obsolete ship. The crew stations around the sides had extra chairs pulled up next to the bolted-down station chairs, and the center well, where the Captain's seat had presumably been, now hosted a bar and small kitchen, including a grill on which amphibious creatures were being flame roasted. Dije hoped they were not sentient.

Dije knew what a Defel was; former mercenaries who had come back home to Sith-ta told all kinds of war stories about the aliens of the underworld. Sure enough, there was a Wraith along one wall, an area of fuligin clinging to the white metal, darker than Lord Thodvexer's heart. In front of it was a fairly ordinary- looking human. Things were looking up.

Once again, Dije simply walked up and sat down. "Spice," she said. "Or whatever you've got."

"Beat it, kid," the human said.

Dije sighed. She really had not wanted to get into a game of threat and counterthreat. But it seemed he wasn't taking her seriously. She considered her response. Too much, and he would not want to trade with her. Perhaps she would sidestep the game entirely by playing dumb, and taking him literally.

"If you insist," Dije replied. She reached out with the Force and flattened the Defel bodyguard to the ground. The darkness popped out of existence as the Wraith stopped concentrating on using the gift of his species.

All sound in the bar ceased, except for the sizzle of the grill.

The human turned around and saw his Defel pinned to the ground. "How did you—" He went for his blaster.

Dije held up a hand, intending to yank the blaster away from him with another show of telekinesis, but he was fast. He got off a shot from the hip.

Time slowed down. Dije saw the red laser fire coming toward her, and panic spiked in her. In that syrup-slow awareness, Dije moved her hand toward the bolt, to intercept it before it reached her heart. Fear surged through her like a flash flood in the desert. The blast touched her hand and she swallowed it, distending inside with the terrible rush of converting its energy to Force energy. Dije absorbed the blaster fire. The terrible fear passed. She knew she had used the Dark Side and she didn't care. She was lucky to be alive.

With the Force energy from the blaster bolt, she yanked the weapon out of his hand and called it to her own. She suddenly wondered if she would have seen Tal again if she had died tonight.

"Think we were about to talk business," Dije said.

"Yeah. Sure."

The Wraith stood up, but did not resume his projection of darkness.

The buzz of conversation in the bar resumed, and someone started a bad, scratchy recording of jizz wailers.

"Give me some spice and I'll give you your blaster back."

The man slowly opened his coat and removed a packet, and pushed it across the table to her hastily. Dije sniffed at the packet. "Ah. Andris. Very nice." She put the blaster on the table and walked out. She made herself go up to the next level before opening the packet. There were five individually wrapped cylinders of andris spice inside. Dije tore the paper off one of them and held it up to the corridor light, letting it charge. She put the other four in a pocket. The activated spice began to glow. She did not bother to roll up her sleeve but pushed the crystals into her wrist.

Dije sighed. Everything was alright now.

Hareng fixed the helmet-cam to the side of the Dug's gleaming brass cheek-plate. He gave the warrior a slap on the back to send him on his way and then mounted the helmet-cam of his opponent, a Togorian. The Togorian snorted and rippled his fur at the Dug, and then settled down for Hareng. The two gladiators were friends outside the arena, but today they were psyched up for combat.

Helmet-cams rarely produced any useable shots, but even two or three in a finished subcast would break up the long shots from the fixed ceiling and wall cameras nicely. The cameraman who worked on the Slave Girls subcast used a lot of droid-controlled cameras, but then, the droids rarely got damaged when filming for the sex-heavy segment of the Sex and Violence Network's customer base. Hareng worked the combat end. Besides the Gladiator show he was about to film, he had also worked on the recently cancelled Street Fight. The Network's latest show was Purple Tears Live, which appealed to both sex fiends and the violence hounds, and Hareng was going to be filming for that show too.

Hareng took his place in the control room, tested the view from all the fixed cameras and the helmet-cams, and the one droid-operated camera, and gave 3 thumbs up to the director. From now until filming was done, his only job was to give advice to the camera droid, which moved the floating camera around the area, zooming in and out, panning from one fighter to another, moving with a fighter as he circled, and so forth.

After that Hareng would edit this Gladiator subcast together into a pleasing whole. That was one of the things he liked about working for a small subcasting studio instead of a big holodrama outfit; he was both the photographer and one of the two editors. Gladiator's chief editor was a hermaphroditic alien who had no understanding of the sexuality of bisexed species, so it was no good with the Slave Girls subcast, or with most of the Purple Tears Live segments. But it sure knew combat.

The Dug in the red trunks and gold armor took his corner. He was carrying a slender javelin in one hand and a net in the other. The net was fixed to a handle and vaguely resembled a cat-o-nine-tails until it was in motion.

The Togorian in the black and silver took the other corner, a tower of white fur, fangs, claws, and horns. His broad-bladed sword looked superfluous.

The buzzer blatted and the gladiators moved to the center of the arena. They circled warily, testing each others' defenses by poking with sword or javelin, or making abrupt movements. Hareng saw the droid was having the floating camera circle behind the Dug's right shoulder. It was a good, solid decision, and Hareng did not interfere.

Suddenly the Dug made his move. He feinted high with the javelin, which caused the Togorian to block upward with the sword. Then he tangled the Togorian's other hand with the net, dropped backward and kicked the Togorian in the gut.

That just made the Togorian mad. He ripped out of the net with his claws and swung his claws at the Dug, but the Dug was too fast for him. He had already bounced away like a coiled spring, recovering both his weapons and dodging to the left.

The Dug jabbed the Togorian in the side, and red-orange alien blood appeared on the white fur. The Togorian roared and his fur stood on end. He grabbed for the javelin, closing his fist in a gesture meant to snap the weapon in two, but the javelin was no longer there.

Hareng overrode the droid's attempt to get a good angle on the Dug's javelin as he lined up his next attack. Instead Hareng concentrated on a closeup of first blood. The fixed cameras would get plenty of vid of the fight's "plot", as Hareng thought of the action. The gore was what the subscribers kept coming back for. Major networks broadcast all kinds of fights. To stand out, subcasters had to provide something the big studios wouldn't.

The Togorian whirled his sword over his head with his right hand, a flashy move that looked good on holo but had no real effect on the fight. The Togorian was showing off for his fans.

The Dug sproinged at the Togorian's left flank, using the javelin as a vaulting pole. He landed two solid kicks to the Togorian's ribs and then spun away, swinging on the javelin. But this time the Togorian's claws connected with the Dug's retreating shoulder, leaving three gashes in the Dug's dark pelt.

Hareng maneuvered the droid holocam and zoomed in close on the red lines. Then he let the droid take the camera back over as the Dug moved closer and the focus blurred. The droid, next to Hareng in the control booth, communicated with the floating camera on a frequency most living species could not hear. The floating camera moved back and circled with the Dug as he flashed past the Togorian's defenses to score another javelin hit.

The Togorian thrust at the retreating Dug and the sword went straight through the Dug's leg. The sword tip came out the other side of the leg. It ran with blood and gleamed from beneath the gore.

The Dug howled and jabbed the Togorian's sword-arm with the javelin. The Togorian retreated, pulling his sword free. The wounded Dug was not so light on his feet now, and the expression in his camel-like face told the story that he was done playing to the cameras and was now about to get serious. Hareng carefully recorded that, too.

The Dug swept out with his net, caught the Togorian's sword, twisted, pulled it away, and snapped the net behind him. The sword clattered to the floor.

Enraged, the Togorian rushed forward, claws out before him, roaring and showing his fangs.

The Dug set the javelin with its butt on the floor and the Togorian charged right onto it, like a cavalry mount brought down by pikemen.

The javelin penetrated the Togorian's chest where a human's heart would be, but Togorians kept their most vital organ a little lower. Frothy peach-colored blood blew from the wound, indicating a lung puncture.

The Togorian tried to roar, but his breath sucked out his chest in a strange little whoosh.

The Dug smiled, certain of his victory.

But the Togorian had one more move left in him. He pulled himself up the javelin and it exited his back. He reached the Dug's hands with his left claw and slashed the javelin out of his opponent's grip, following up with the claws of his right hand straight toward the Dug's neck.

The Dug ducked and the slash scratched ineffectually against the Dug's helmet.

The Togorian fell in a heap. The Dug had won!

Hareng saw the droid was moving the droid operated holocam in close to the Togorian, so Hareng let the droid run. The fixed cameras would get good shots of the Dug's victory wave.

Hareng counted off ten timeparts and then turned to the director, "Full ten."

"Shut down," the director confirmed. "Med crew, go!"

The four- being medical team burst into the arena as Hareng turned off the cameras. After a trip to the med droid and a few weeks soaking in a bacta tank, the two gladiators would be ready to fight again.

"Marvelous upset," the director commented. "The Dug will have to advance. Maybe fight Kabar the Aqualish next."

"And the Togorian?"

"I loved that last move, sliding up the javelin, even if he did miss. He's got a real fighting spirit. Think we could persuade him to fight the rancor?"

Hareng laughed. "They're slaves. They fight who you tell them to fight."

"That's good enough for the Slave Girls; unwillingness is part of what the customers pay to see. But the Gladiators are a different breed. They need their hearts in the fight."

Hareng made a thumb-twirling gesture which was his species' equivalent of a shrug. "I'm going to go retrieve my helmet-cams from the med bay."

Early morning light streamed through the windows of Dije's room in the former Imperial Palace. Sumptuous carpets cushioned the gleaming legs of the polished greel-wood desk in which she had stashed the andris. Dije was up early as usual. Coruscant had a mild climate, but she was used to the desert of Kamex Spaceport, where one finished one's tasks by noon or got roasted. Dije had discovered that this desert dweller habit was one that Skywalker shared, even though he had been away from Tatooine for a very long time. So they had fallen into a routine in which they met in one of the Palace's lesser gyms before the rest of the clan was awake.

She dressed in Sith blacks. She briefly considered wearing the Bright dungarees and binding back her hair with a headband that would disguise her Blackstar tattoo. But her Sith clothes were a close approximation of what Master Skywalker himself wore, and nothing would disguise the tattoos on her cheeks. She rubbed her eyes for the tenth time and made her way to the gymnasium. The room with the blue mat floor was already occupied.

Luke sat and meditated. He opened his eyes when Dije sat down across from him. "Good morning, Dije."

"Morning, Master Skywalker."

"Here, catch." Casually, Luke tossed a silvery object to her.

Dije went cold as she realized it was his lightsaber. She reached, fumbled—it started to fall—she unaccountably thought she shouldn't drop it, and a stab of panic went through her gut. Instinctively, she caught it with the Force. Then she stared at the ominous cylinder in her hand as she realized she had let her fear fuel her. She had used the dark side.

New terror rose in her; she was afraid to look at the lightsaber, but even more afraid to look up and see what shock and disappointment must be on Skywalker's face. But Skywalker chuckled. She dared to look, and Skywalker grinned with boyish delight.

"At last I found something I can teach you."

Dije tried to speak and made a pitiful mewling sound like a baby woolamander.

He extended a hand and called the laser sword back to him, and set it beside him. "Most of your skills are better than mine. Not more powerful, but more polished. Especially your telepathy. You're easily my equal at telekinesis. You can do things I don't even have names for. You've believed in the Force all your life, and have had the benefit of an intact tradition, even if there are a number of things you'll have to unlearn, like reaching for the Force in panic. You don't need me to help you unlearn that, though, you're catching yourself well enough. These past few days as I've been testing you, I was beginning to wonder what I could offer you, beyond a time and place to study."

"Sword fighting?" Dije asked warily.

"Eventually. It seems to me that before we get to the actual combat aspects, first thing will be a program of desensitization. You must unlearn your fear of the lightsaber."

"Surely, it's normal to fear a deadly weapon?" Dije squeaked.

"I've seen you face a blaster cannon in a real fight. You weren't afraid. This—this is a phobia."

"It's the bane of my people," Dije said softly. "Haunts our myths. Fills our boogeyman stories. In a holo-drama, when a lightsaber appears, one of the heroes of the story is going to get mutilated. And that's what the ancient Jedi wanted, isn't it? During the first Sith War? For the ancestors to get the message: fight a saber, lose a hand."

For answer, Luke flipped up the plate on his right hand and showed Dije the bionic mechanism. She gasped.

"I did lose a hand in a lightsaber duel." He closed the access plate. "And the saber that was in it. Then I made a new lightsaber, this one. A Jedi must not be ruled by fear."

"Who were you dueling?"

Luke's mouth quirked. "A Sith. And I thought everybody knew that story. Your home planet really is isolated, isn't it?"

"A—how? If anyone from Sith-ta had fought a Jedi and won in the last fifty years, it would have been all over the official news. The Governtists hate you too, you know. Whoever it was would have been famous."

"Not that kind of Sith."

"There is only one kind."

"No, apparently there are at least two kinds, because there's you and your people. In the rest of the galaxy, we didn't know Sith-ta existed. Whoever created the Blockade was forgotten, and so was your world. One Sith Lord must have escaped and hidden. He took an apprentice, and then in turn that apprentice became the Master of a new apprentice, and so on. Out here, away from your planet, it was well known that there are always only two Sith at a time, a Master and an apprentice."

"That makes no sense," Dije said. "Any population will grow over time, if it doesn't die."

"They weren't a people. They were an initiatory tradition. A secret one, obviously."

"Oh. Well, we have initiations too, of course."

"Though," Luke said, with an odd, unreadable expression, "apprentice and son are not mutually exclusive. Never mind. I imagine you probably are interested in the history of the Sith in the wider galaxy."

Dije nodded. "Need to know more about this."

"And the Republic is interested in the modern Sith, for that matter. Leia wants me to get you to write some reports."

"Write?" Dije said doubtfully.

Luke smiled. "It can wait. The planet isn't going anywhere. But your training in conquering your fear starts now." Luke picked up the saber and handed it to her. "Take it."

Dije accepted it cautiously.

"Now, choose a meditation. It can be one of the ones I've taught you, or one of the song based ones you taught yourself. Your goal is to reach a state of calm while holding the lightsaber. When you can do that, consistently, then I'll teach you to wield it."

Dije closed her eyes and sang softly. Eventually her fear did fade, and she opened her eyes.

"That's enough for today," Luke said, taking back the weapon. "We'll meditate again tomorrow." He clipped the lightsaber to his belt. Dije's eyes tracked the motions of his artificial right hand.

"But—" She let the pause go on a long time.

"But what, Dije?"

"But you Jedi don't actually still use those for regular everyday use, do you? I mean, didn't you just dig them out to fight against the Sith, because we fear it?"

"No. It's a standard part of a Jedi's training, a symbol of the Jedi, and the only weapon we usually carry."

"But why? They can't be set on stun. They're more likely to cripple instead of kill cleanly. I mean, I understand the idea of intimidating your enemy out of fighting at all, but, but, carving people up is just—wrong."

"Yoda once told me a Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. It's not really quite that simple, of course. Most of what I did as a member of the Rebel Alliance—the things that really mattered, I mean—was combat of one form or another. When I destroyed the first Death Star, I flew out to it in a fighter and attacked it, and I used the Force to guide my bombs. It was a huge vessel with a lot of people onboard. I attacked them and I killed them. But if I hadn't, the Death Star would have been used to destroy more planets like it had destroyed Alderaan, and millions, maybe billions more people would have died. It was clear to me what the moral choice was. The Death Star had to be destroyed. The Empire had to be defeated. And ultimately, the Emperor had to die."

Luke's eyes unfocused for a moment, as he watched some inner vision.

"Just seems so—aggressive."

Luke nodded. "It's good that you're wary of aggression. With your background, I can see that you're going to be especially cautious of the Dark Side, much more so than most Jedi students, who aren't as familiar with it. But if you go too far in the other direction, you end up with pacifism, like the Fruitioners you told me about, that you said you learned your songs from. That's not the Jedi way either. The Jedi are an order of knighthood. When necessary, we fight, and kill." Luke's words slowed down and his voice took on a strange whispery quality, as he spoke a prophecy from the Force: "Someday you will make your own lightsaber, and you will not be afraid to use it. And then you will be a Jedi."

It was growing dark on Coruscant. A million lights winked to life out the window, brighter and more numerous than the stars appearing in the sky.

"So what do you think?" demanded Anakin. He shut off the holoprojector and stretched. The whole story had taken all day to watch.

"Is all that true? Or did the holodrama producers spice up the story?"

"Of course it's all true, Dije. I was with Uncle Luke when he went to the set as a consultant, to see how the actor would be playing him. It was really funny! He told the guy, no, no, you're playing me all wrong, I wasn't a Jedi Master back then. More whiny and angry!" Anakin giggled. "But he sounded whiny when he said it!"

"But—everybody says—no. It's not important."

"Let's go play in the ball chamber!"

"You go ahead. I've got the think. I didn't know all this."

"Suit yourself." Anakin shrugged and dashed off.

"What is it?" asked a soft voice.

Dije whirled. "Luke! Master Skywalker, I mean. I didn't hear you come in. I was so wrapped up in the story."

"It's OK. You can call me Luke. I prefer it, actually."

Dije nodded. "What's that? Um, Luke." She gestured with her chin to the brown bundle he carried.

Luke unfolded a Jedi robe. "It's for you."

Dije got up and took it reverently. She laid out the parts in order over the arm of the velvet couch: brown tank shirt, natural undyed wrap jacket, pants, and sash, brown belt—it had an empty notch-clip where a lightsaber would go—and brown over- robe.

"It's a dream come true. Thank you."

"I'm getting one for everybody at the Academy. I had the Palace tailor droid make this sample from old pictures of Jedi from the archives. After visiting your home planet, I decided this—" he gestured to his black bodysuit—"just wouldn't do anymore."

She smiled wryly. "I see."

"So what was it that troubled you about the story of my life, that you censored yourself from saying to Anakin?"

"He thought you were going to die."

"Who?"

"Vader. Anakin Skywalker. Whoever he was at that moment."

"When he saved me? It sure felt like dying to me."

"You're supposed to think that. Until you come out the other side. It's the final test in a Sith initiation sequence. I shouldn't have told you that. It's a secret."

"The Emperor said he was going to kill me."

"The Force is life," Dije said. "That's the first lesson and the last. That's what it means to be a Sith. And Vader didn't know that. Maybe he couldn't go through the initiation because of the suit. Force-lightning destroyed it, at the end, even though it wasn't even directed at him, exactly. Vader was never a real Sith."

Luke stood still a few moments, staring at nothing. "No," he said slowly. "I don't agree. The tradition probably changed over the years. There's been thousands of years of divergence between the Sith of Sith-ta and the Sith of the secret tradition of one and one."

"Then the tradition of one and one must have become so debased it turned into something else," Dije said. "I had one of the droids find some records for me about the secret Sith. They lost the language. They didn't have tattoos. They forgot the art of illusion—but then, so did we. Our tradition isn't what it used to be, either."

"And neither is mine," Luke said quietly, moving to the window. He looked out at the constant streams of air traffic in the skies of Coruscant; the traffic was mostly down, from here in the heights of Imperial Palace. "I've recovered much that the old order of the Jedi knew, but I don't think I'll ever get back everything. The new Jedi order will be different from the old, whatever I may wish. Your skills are a treasure trove, Dije."

Luke moved away from the window and came to stand close to her, and to direct his piercing gaze at her. "Teach me the ways of the Sith."

Dije's jaw dropped.

Then he blinked, smiled crookedly and actually blushed. "That didn't come out right."

"Um. Um?"

"I meant, you have as much to teach me as I have to teach you. I learn something from all of my students, of course; it's a give and take. If learning to be a Jedi was the same for everybody I could just put it in a book. But I'd very much like to learn some of the skills you seem to take for granted, like that mind-link. It would be a tremendous asset to pilots in combat. And whatever it was the mercenaries did on Msha."

"That's field effect," Dije said. "That's not one of my talents."

"But how does it work?"

She shrugged. "How does anything we do with the Force work? For that matter, how does an air taxi work? I really don't know. On Sith-ta, nobody actually teaches how to use the Force. We just sort of do it. We learn stuff like mind-link by imitating the grownups and older kids when we see them use it. Like learning to talk. And talents like field effect, or my own talent, the noble gift, develop later and we just tinker with them til they do what we want. It's up to each initiate to figure out how to use the Force and then ask to be tested for a tattoo when he's ready. There are schools on Sith-ta, but they're for the Governtists' children, not for the Sith. And the Fruitioners have religious schools, but Sith don't go to them. There are a few basic exercises that our parents teach us early, mostly through nursery tales. How to call power when we aren't already emotionally charged up. A calm Sith can't do much with the Force. Except me, of course. How to build shields, how NOT to eavesdrop on peoples' thoughts when you don't want to, that sort of thing. It's fantastically difficult for a Sith to do much of anything if they aren't hopping mad."

"Interesting. Isn't the Dark Side supposed to be easier?"

"It is easier. I am so much stronger in the Dark Side. It comes quickly when I call to it in fear. If I were crashing a speederbike I wouldn't have time to sing a few verses and pull Light to me. My connection to the Light is still uncertain. I need it to be dependable, if I'm going to rely on it, and give up using the Dark Side."

"It will be, eventually," Luke assured. "That's what the Academy is for: giving you enough time and practice to be able to rely on the Force."

Dije nodded.

"So what do you do? I mean, what do the Sith do when they aren't angry or afraid and want to use the Force?"

"The most basic ritual is the Hate List. We recite a list of people we hate. It stopped working for me, though. I actually tried it on board the Star Destroyer on the way here. Mercenaries have a lot of boring days sitting around on ships waiting to get to the war zone. There were some times when I had to make a show of strength to avoid a fight." She gestured to the two vertical blue lines on her cheeks. "These are enough to keep most Sith in line. But the fact that I wasn't contesting the leadership made some people doubt me."

"I predict we're going to have many fascination discussions, when we get to Yavin 4. We'll be leaving in 3 days. After practice tomorrow morning, I'd like to hear more about your people and planet. Perhaps you could start working on writing a report about it, for Leia; or, I suppose, probably for Intelligence, eventually."

"Um. There's kind of a problem."

"I understand if that makes you uncomfortable. They are still your people, after all, even if you are on the Jedi path now. Just stick to general information. I don't expect you to know any military secrets anyway."

"It's not that," Dije said.

"What, then?"

"I can read a ledger. Sort of. In Sith. The Galactic Standard letters are different. Tal read the maps and stuff on the way here."

"Oh. Oh, I see." Luke thought a moment. "Well, then I think I know who your main teacher ought to be, when we get to the Academy. Tionne would love to teach you to read and write. You two can exchange songs, and study history. She sings, too, and plays the mando-twin. You'll love it."

Dije grinned. "I'd like that. Saw her on the contraband newscast that started me on this journey."

"That's settled, then." Luke was grinning too. "See you tomorrow morning."

Click. The peppy Psy Healer tune went out over the airwaves. It took over an hour to get from the spaceport to her destination, but that was alright. It gave the subscribers time to finish what they were doing if they wanted to watch the subcast live. Ongreya journeyed to a collection of buildings marked Observation Center on the sign out front. "We're here to meet someone I thought could not exist: someone who has no mental shields. He's in terrible psychic pain because he can't block out the thoughts of others."

Ongreya went into a building. She breezed past the uniformed woman behind the counter and tried to open the door, but it was locked.

"Do you have an appointment?" the woman asked.

"I am Ongreya the Psy Healer. Take me to the one whose mind calls out to me in pain."

The woman made a sour expression. "That would be all of them, I think. So you're the new doctor?"

"Yes," Ongreya lied glibly.

"Dr. Demojon left these forms for you to fill out." She handed over a thick packet of actual paper forms, not flimsi printout. The kind of thing that would end up in some legal archive. "You can do that later. I just need to get copies of your identity documents and license."

"Oh, you didn't receive the copy of my license I sent?"

"I'll check." She opened a drawer and leafed through it. "No, not yet."

"Oh, I thought you had it. I left it in my apartment."

"Oh. Sorry, but I can't let you in until we have it on file. Liability issue, you know."

"Of course. I'll bring it this afternoon."

Ongreya left the building and walked along the block. "I see this is going to be slightly more complicated than usual. I'm circling the block, and negating my human seeming. When I return, I will be an unrecognizable alien. But first I must go into this clothing shop and buy a disguise. New clothes, and something to cover all but the lens of my holocam hat."

Today Master Skywalker had told Dije to change back into her Sith blacks after the morning 'unlearning' session. Luke brought Dije to a bland conference room in one of the less lofty sections of the Palace. A young humanoid in the uniform of the New Republic military sat nervously at the table. He had a holorecorder and a datapad on the table beside him.

Luke put a hand on Dije's shoulder and directed her into a chair, and stood behind her. She settled in and glanced at his bionic hand, which was still on her shoulder. She realized the gesture was meant to reassure the young intelligence officer that the Jedi had the dangerous Sith under control.

The silence stretched out. The humanoid looked slightly green; Dije could not tell if that was his natural coloring or a result of his nervousness. He fiddled with the holorecorder, which appeared to be running. Dije wondered if she should just ask what he wanted to know. Finally, Luke said, "Go on. Ask her something."

The humanoid consulted his datapad. "Ah. Ah, how many, um warships does Sith-ta have?"

"None," Dije responded. "So far as I know. Only blockade runners. Shuttles and cargo ships. They have to be small and fast to get by the Blockade, even in the safe lanes. Most of the cargo ships that land on Sith-ta are owned and operated by offworlders. Smugglers."

"The Blockade. The Blockade is an orbital weapons array?"

"It is. Some of the weapons don't function anymore. Some of those have been boarded, retrofitted, and are used for space stations."

"What sort of space navy does Sith-ta field?"

"No sort. The Sith are mercenaries. The Governtists who rule our world have an army, but it's for putting down riots and any Sith warlord who gets too big for his cape and britches. The difference between soldier and police is kind of blurry."

"How many Sith mercenaries are there?"

Dije shrugged. The gesture made her uncomfortably aware of Skywalker's mechanical hand still resting on her shoulder. "No clue. A lot less, now, anyway. Though the ones you're shipping back will probably just work their way back off planet again, since they aren't returning with fortunes to set themselves up with a life."

He fiddled with his datapad. "How is the Governtor elected?"

"He isn't. Sith-ta isn't a democracy. It's a bureaucracy. Kind of like your military."

"What are the most important cabinet posts?"

"Got me. We don't pay much attention to that kind of stuff."

He looked up, for the first time forming a genuine question of his own instead of relaying the questions a committee came up with. "Oh, ah—why not?"

"Sith are—well, I think the term in your language is 'oppressed minority'. We have no participation in the government. And very little in the economy, since it's illegal to own too much. The Sith live in crumbling ghettos because fixing the buildings up would put the owners over the legal wealth limit. That's what drives us off planet to works as Sith Guards."

The intelligence officer went back to the questions from the datapad. Most of them involved numbers, which Dije did not know. How many of this, how many of that. But Dije managed to scrape up enough information to satisfy him. Finally he came to the end of his list. "That is all." For the first time the nervous humanoid lifted his eyes to regard the legendary Jedi Master, and whispered, "You're amazing." Then he turned off the recorder, collected his gear, and scurried out.

Luke finally left his pose behind Dije and came around to lean on the table. "So. That's over. Ready for lunch?"

"What was that about, 'you're amazing'? You barely said anything."

"He was under the impression that I was forcing you to answer."

"Oh. Wouldn't that be kind of—um—um, violent?"

Luke twitched in surprise, and—recognition? Dije realized she had reminded him of someone, but she couldn't imagine who. Dije wondered if she was really reading that off his expression, or if some lingering effect of the link gave her that insight through the Force.

"Most of the military personnel still call me Commander Skywalker, even though it's been quite a while since I led an X-wing squadron. They think I'm a great warrior." Luke smiled ruefully.

Dije recognized the reference from the holodrama. She pitched her voice up and imitated Yoda, "Wars not make one great."

Luke grinned. "Come on. We're meeting up with some other Jedi in an hour at Falls. You'll like it. Every booth has a real water cascade running down the partitions."

"Real water. Only another desert rat would say that," Dije smiled. "So I've got time to freshen up?"

"Sure. Go put your new uniform back on. Meet me up on the landing pad in twenty."

Dije went back to her room and straight to the greel wood desk. Despite the fact that her interrogator had obviously been much more afraid of her than she was of him, the interview had left her feeling shaken up. She had hummed a Fruitioner song on the way here, but it didn't help. She wasn't angry or afraid. She just still felt rattled. She just needed something to take the edge off.

Dije opened one of the packages and held it up to the light from the window. After this one she would only have three doses left, and she might not get any more for a very long time. She had to make it last.

Back home she had only taken drugs at parties. But here there was nobody to party with. Tal was lost to her. Her eyes felt hot for a moment, but then the spice was ready and she pulled off her clothes and stuck the andris into her thigh, and everything was alright again. Then she put on her new Jedi robes.

Ongreya explained her strategy on the way back to the building. "If I can't get in, I'll get him to come out. I know he wants to leave, even more than he wants help. He thinks he can't escape. But there's nothing more between him and freedom but a pane of glass. He's just too scared to think."

Ongreya went to the side of the building. There was a glass window, painted over so that some light could get in, but the patients could not see out. "Ah. Just as I thought. I can see the window in his mind. There are no shadows across it, from a grating or bars. And you can see, from here on the outside, it's just a window." Ongreya punched out the glass. It shattered and fell to the floor inside with a sound like a hundred clinking toasts with champagne in sparkling crystal.

"I am Ongreya the Psy Healer. Your pain called out to me across the stars. I can help you."

The skinny human got up from his cot. His face was wet, and he was slightly bent over as if his stomach was churning so much he could not straighten up. He backed away from the window.

"Don't be afraid," said Ongreya. "Your nightmare is over. It's time to leave."

"I don't believe in you. You don't exist. You're just another—" Then he blinked. Her Psy Healer power took hold of him. "Leave? I can leave?"

"Come on. Don't be afraid of the glass. See?" Ongreya put a towel from the shop over the broken glass.

The young man eagerly climbed through the window, and accepted the poncho Ongreya handed him. He put it on over his patient's gown, and the uniform of sickness disappeared from view.

He started to run, but Ongreya said, "Slow down! Don't attract attention. Look like you're supposed to be walking around out here."

The youth fell into step with Ongreya. They crossed the broad lawn. She said, "Tell me of your pain."

"I hear things," he said. "I came here for help. But they don't help people here. Nobody's ever asked me how I feel until now."

"What do you hear?" Ongreya asked.

"Voices. People talking. Not to me, mostly. Sometimes to me. I can hear the lady at customer service thinking how annoying I am while she's smiling at me. Here, I could hear the intake clerk putting me in a category. But I didn't know what it meant. I didn't know!" He started crying again.

"Can you hear my thoughts right now?" Ongreya asked.

"Yes. You're trying to tell me it'll be alright because you can help me, and because I'm out of there now. But you're wrong, I'm not safe. They'll come for me. I can't ever go home. My parents will send me back!"

"You don't have to stay on this planet. There are lots of other planets out there. I've been on so many I don't even bother to learn all their names anymore. In fact, I'm not sure which planet I'm on."

"Kuat. This is Kuat."

They stepped off the lawn and onto the broad pedestrian way below the aircar traffic, and started walking toward an air taxi stand.

"Hmm, odd, I thought the Kuati were more civilized than to lock people up just for being different. Well, as I said, if you don't want to stay here, there are plenty of other places to go. But perhaps I could heal your relationship with your family as well."

"Really?"

"Really. And you aren't crazy. The voices you hear are real peoples' real thoughts. You heard mine more clearly than my own species can. You are a telepath."

"I'm not crazy?"

"No. All you need is mental shields. And I can tell you how to do that."

The humidity of Yavin 4 hit her like a punch in the chest. She clomped down the ramp with her haversack over her shoulder. The three Solo children screeched out of the supply ship and into the imposing black stone edifice of the Temple. Several Jedi had gathered; on the way here, Luke had told Dije that students would come out to help unload the cargo, and that she should help them.

At the foot of the ramp Dije set down her duffle, took a deep breath of the wet air—so alive, scented with flowers and rotting, the cycle of life of the jungle—hummed a few bars to calm her nerves, and moved the crates out of the hold and stacked them in the clearing, for the others to bring to wherever they went. It was the same job she and Tal had performed together in Kamex spaceport. Dije expected to feel the pang of loss on being reminded of Tal, but she did not. Perhaps, she decided, she was starting to recover.

Luke exited the ship, walking next to her neatly spaced conveyor-belt style stream of boxes, barrels, and pallet loads. He seemed amused about something.

When Dije was done offloading, she turned to the other Jedi, and saw they were physically picking up boxes in their hands. The crates were large, and they were surely augmenting their strength with the Force. One of the other Jedi was moving a large pallet load through the air, solely with the Force, but only one at a time, and he was walking along with it to guide it. One of the other Jedi was not doing any work, but frankly staring at Dije, and the others were glancing at her between trips.

"What?" Dije demanded.

For a moment nobody answered, but then Luke said with a smile, "You've impressed them. Levitating rocks is one of our weekly exercises. You just got here and already you're demonstrating a kind of proficiency we've never seen."

The staring Jedi, an older man, said, "You must be very powerful."

Dije responded, "I'm not. I'm average. This isn't power, it's practice."

"You look like Exar Kun."

"Really?" Dije asked eagerly. "I don't think I have any cousins named Exar, but he could be a relative. Who is he?"

That brought the supply hauling to a stop. The other Jedi set down their loads to watch the much more interesting events at the ramphead. "What?" Dije asked.

Luke cleared his throat. "Dije, he was the one who had these Temples built."

Dije looked up at the ancient, weathered stone temple. "Oh. Too bad. You sounded like you'd met him."

"I did," said the man.

"This is Streen, Dije."

"But, you look human. How old are you?"

"He's seen his ghost. So have I. And I think Streen probably meant your tattoos."

"Oh. So he's here? When can I meet him?"

"He's gone now," Luke said. "But I think it's a lost cause trying to conceal your ethnicity, after this."

"I suppose. I'll just have to think of some way to explain this to my people."

After an awkward pause, Luke turned toward another Jedi coming out of the Temple. "Oh, good! Tionne, over here!"

Dije grinned in delight as she spotted the opal-eyed woman.

Luke was smiling even wider than Dije, giving off the aura of someone about to reveal a magnificent surprise present. "Tionne, it's about time you had your own apprentice. Meet Dije Kun."

"An apprentice?" Tionne asked. "But I'm not strong in the Force. I couldn't possibly be someone's Master."

"You're precisely what she needs. And you're ready. I say so."

"Thank you, Master Luke. I'm honored."

Dije said, "I'm delighted to meet you, Master Tionne."

Tionne flushed, either with pride or embarrassment, or possibly both, at being addressed as a Master.

"You two go get acquainted," Luke directed. "Find Dije some quarters. And one of those dehumidifiers."

Kerruke spotted a knot of Sith in the cantina. She waited until one of them got up to go to the bar, shouldering his way between a warthog-faced Squattor and a many-eye. Then she got up and made as if she was going to the bar, and when he was on his way back to the table with an armful of drinsk, Kerruke 'stumbled' into him and caused him to spill them all over himself.

"Watch where you're going, idiot!" Kerruke said.

As expected, he shoved her, and responded in Sith, "You watch it, cow-bug!"

She punched him, and the fight was on. His friends jumped up to come to his aid, and Kerruke pushed at them with the Force. Then one of them turned on a suppression field, and three others followed suit a heartbeat later. That kept the Force out of the fight.

One of them smashed a glass on her head, but it was a fragile glass and did not do much damage to her. Kerruke jabbed backwards with her elbow and struck the glass-breaker, while kicking her original opponent in the shins.

Someone punched her in the ribs. She reached out and grabbed somebody by the hair, and then someone tripped her. In a moment four of the combatants followed her to the ground, grabbing each of her limbs.

"What have you got to say for yourself now, clumsy fool?" said the first man.

"You're hired," Kerruke replied.

"What?" asked one of the men holding her down.

"I'm looking for crew for my ship. You fight well together. You passed the test."

"Are you serious?" asked the one at her left foot.

"Yes. Sith Raider needs a crew. One of you is Ni Smashlier the pilot, yes?"

"Yes," admitted one of the men still standing.

"Good. I'm not much of a pilot myself. I can operate the autopilot, but I need someone who can fly in combat. And I need regular troopers, and the rest of the bridge crew, and an engineer, too. Let me up, let me buy you all a round, and let's talk business."

They all looked at each other, probably mind-linking in succession. "Why not?" asked Ni.

They let Kerruke up, and turned off the suppression field. Kerruke Force-flipped a bag of cash to the barkeep. They all sat down at their booth.

Dije was too nervous to eat. She and Tionne were going to be singing one of Dije's Fruitioner songs together tonight, in front of whoever wanted to come listen, and that was probably going to be everybody. Dije had never had stage fright. It wasn't the performance itself, it was the fact that so many of the people in the audience didn't like her.

For most of the Jedi students, just being Force-sensitive was enough of a point of commonality to begin a friendship. Not for Dije. Everybody she knew growing up was Force-sensitive.

Once they had returned to Yavin 4, the Solo children had gravitated to their agemates. Anakin still sometimes sought Dije out and pulled her outside for a game of ball, or something, but other than him, she had no other friends. She loved spending time with Tionne, loved learning to read, loved singing, and was even developing a passion for history to match Tionne's, but Master Tionne was her teacher, not a friend. It wasn't the same. It wasn't the same as Tal.

"Relax," Tionne said. "It's a great song, and we sound really good together. I've worked out some great fingerings for the mando-twin. It's going to be great!"

"They hate me," Dije said.

"No they don't. They're Jedi. They don't hate anybody."

"Well, OK, I guess I've somehow gotten a reputation for being antisocial. Well, not 'somehow', 'stupidly'," Dije amended. "How was I supposed to know Lowie would be such a whiner? I mean, he won. I can understand a sore loser, but he won the game! So why would he go and complain to everybody?"

"What game?"

"We played a game of Threat and Counterthreat. He won. The ripping arms out of the sockets thing sounded very convincing. Even filtered through the translator droid."

"I've never heard of that game."

"But everybody plays it!" Dije protested. "If you don't play it everybody rifles your stuff and jollies on you." Dije felt a stab of possessive worry go through her as she thought of her one remaining dose of andris, wrapped up in her old black cape. She could really use some right now. Her gut felt so tight she felt stooped over. But it was the last one, and she wanted to save it for an emergency. But what if someone stole it? Lowie, maybe. She had lost the game, after all, and he could walk in and take her things any time.

Tionne thought for a moment. "Do you know, Dije, when you think about life on your homeworld, your accent—well, you don't really have an accent. Your word choice goes a little street."

"Huh."

"This is the first I've heard of this. So he must have only talked to the other students, not the teachers."

"Oh. That's a bit better, I guess. Keep it under your hood, then, please. I don't want to be the sore loser."

"If you wish. Now let's practice the song one more time. As performers I don't think we need any polish, but you could use the song to calm down."

"Sure."

They ran through their routine and then went out to perform. Dije held to the Light in the song and ignored the audience. The Fruitioner song was, of course, in the Sith language. But Dije's long droning chanting and Tionne's breathy melody, combined with the water-droplet plinks and birdsong twitters of Tionne's double box string instrument, spoke of peace and harmony in any tongue.

Dije felt so good by the end of the set that she no longer felt like having any spice. Nor did she care about the other students' opinions. This was what she had come here to do: to bring the Light into her heart. In the love of the Light, she could even think of Tal, and how much he would have enjoyed doing this with her, without wanting to weep. It was enough.

Dije still felt satisfied with her studies the next morning, but decided she wanted to start exploring the jungle. She had gotten used to the humidity by now, and wanted to get in touch with nature. After her daily reading lesson with Tionne, Dije ditched the outer robe of her Jedi uniform, thinking it would probably catch on things, and headed into the bush.

She walked a long way, and finally came to another of the Massassi temples. This one was smaller than the Great Temple in which the Jedi had made their home. The pyramid was split down the middle to frame a statuary, and the whole thing was set off by a picturesque reflecting pool. Dije thought it was lovely.

She came closer and saw that the water had stepping stones leading to the temple entrance. Somehow the water was kept at just the perfect level to keep the stones wet. Dije took a step and realized it looked like she was walking on water. Delighted, she started singing a joyous Fruitioner harvest song as she walked along. Reaching dry ground, she admired the statue. It was a man, and he had a design on his forehead. With a start, Dije realized he had a Blackstar tattoo and cheek tattoos: he was a Dark Lord of the Sith. This must be the Temple of Exar Kun. Dije laughed out loud in wonder.

She looked around, and saw that the walls were covered with writing in Ancient Sith, and in jeweled mosaics. The mosaics were in disrepair, but were still beautiful. Dije tried to pick out some of the writing, but Ancient Sith was a far different language from its modern counterpart. It would take a great deal of study to decipher it. That was fine with Dije. She had grown to enjoy academics, under Master Tionne's tutelage.

Dije decided to record the writing and translate it. She would move in and work right here. The weather was fair, and the Temple of Exar Kun did have some areas with a roof in case of a sudden jungle rain shower. The place reminded her of home. No, she thought; not of home, but of Sith-ta generally. Which was odd, because she had visited Fruitioner farmland but had never gotten into any primeval forests like this back on Sith-ta. Dije shrugged off the feeling. Just seeing another Sith, even if he was a stone statue, was probably enough to account for it. She was not homesick at all. She had spent most of the last year wanting to escape "Dullsville", and she dreaded the day when she would return to her planet. She would have to take and hold a territory, and then she would be trapped in the prison of her borders like all the other Dark Lords. But today she felt good. Dije started humming a working-song as she explored the ruins. This was going to be fun.

Dije moved into the Temple of Exar Kun. She fell into a routine of spending a few days there, then coming back to the Great Temple to collect supplies, work with Tionne, or with Luke, change clothes and wash whichever outfit she had been wearing and hang up the laundry in her room to dry.

Sometimes, when there was going to be a group lesson or gathering, she sat in on those, and made sure she showed up in her Jedi robes. But she found her Sith fatigues more practical for moving about in the jungle. Some of the other Jedi wore very similar black bodysuits, and a few of the students and teachers wore far more eccentric things. There was a girl there who wore the hide of some unfortunate reptile. There was also some sort of noblewoman who possessed some planet's fussy court finery, but couldn't be bothered to cover up the stump of her arm after she was the victim of a lightsaber training accident. Dije got a cold shudder down her spine every time she looked at Tenel Ka. That was definitely worse than Luke's artificial hand.

Dije avoided the one armed girl, which also meant avoiding Jacen and Jaina, since they were friends. Most of the time that meant avoiding Anakin, too, but sometimes he made an effort to find her when his older brother and sister ditched him. He wouldn't go visit her at the Temple of Exar Kun, though; he said the place was creepy.

Today she was in her Jedi robes, standing in a clearing. Sunlight angled down, making mottled bright green and deep shadow designs of the leaves and boles of the woods. The cries of some unknown small creature, and sudden wing-beats contributed to the idyll of the peaceful forest.

Dije stood in the clearing alongside Master Skywalker. She had a saber hilt in her hand, one of the spares belonging to the Academy. Her eyes were open, but she was not really looking at anything. She pulled Light into her heart.

"That's good. Ignite it."

Dije blinked and looked down. She had seen these being used, and the controls were very simple. She pressed a button and the distinctive snap-hiss jolted into the peace of the forest. The blade was as bright and yellow as the sun. She jerked a little and squinted her eyes, and clutched the lightsaber, afraid of dropping it and cutting off her foot.

"Now recapture your calm."

Dije closed her eyes and silently ran through a calming song. She opened her eyes. The glowing blade was still there, but the fear was at bay.

"Good. Now hold it a little more loosely. Tip up a little. Good. Now walk around the clearing with it. Get comfortable with moving with it in your hand."

Dije started to walk, but when she finally wrenched her gaze away from the lightsaber glow, the afterimage blinded her to the small pebble in her path. She slipped. Time slowed down. She was aware that she was falling forward with a lit lightsaber in front of her. She suddenly thought she was going to fall on it and cut herself in half. The spike of panic went through her and she connected to the Force: there it was, the Dark Side, strong and pure, always ready to her call. Her faithful servant.

Dije was aware of a high-pitched simian eeeeeeek! And realized it was her own scream. Then she noticed she was ten meters up a tree. She was hanging from a branch. The lightsaber, still switched on, was directly below her. It had carved a curving track into the jungle floor.

Luke retrieved the saber and turned it off. "Come on back down," he called up to her.

Dije's hands strained on the rough tree limb. She was afraid to fall. If she used the Force right now, she knew it would be the Dark Side again. She had used it to get up here! A new emotion surged through her: guilt. And then shame, as she felt the gentle breeze cold and sharp on her face, and recognized the feeling of tears.

"Dije, you're too hard on yourself. Just go on. Let go of the last moment and be in this one."

"Do you know what I did?" Dije croaked.

"I know. I felt it. It's going to be a hard habit to break, Dije. But this isn't helping. Sing one of your songs. Regain your calm, and then come down."

Dije closed her eyes and mentally went through a song. Then another. She regained a measure of calm, but not enough to connect with the Light. She was just considering whether she ought to hook her legs over the branch and climb down when two bird analogues of different species suddenly flew past her in an aerial territorial dispute, claws and beaks far too close to Dije. Startled, she let go.

For a moment she thought she was going to go splat on the ground, and probably break something. She reached for the Light, but could not quite connect. Fleetingly, she thought of herself and Tal falling from the hotel window on Sith-ta. She had been able to connect to the Light then, despite the sniper fire. But not now. She didn't have time to wonder why. She only knew that if she wanted to stop her fall she would have to use the Dark Side. She had just this one instant to choose.

Dije rejected the darkness. And in that moment, her descent slowed. She touched down gently. For a moment she was confused. Had she used the Force after all? Dark side or bright?

Then she realized that Luke had caught her. He smiled at her gently. "I won't let you fall."

Dije wiped her tears and smiled back. "Thank you." Then she ran back to her room and took her last dose of spice. Just to take the edge off.

Luke had not skipped with excitement for about two decades. Streen did a double take when Luke passed him in the hallway skipping. Before Luke entered the grand hall where his students were eating supper, he made himself slow to a more dignified pace. But he was still grinning like little Jacen with a new species of furry pet.

He waited until after the meal, the time when Tionne would sing, or when anyone else who had something to share would do so. Luke was not a model of patience, rushing through the Academy's admittedly mediocre fare.

"My fellow Jedi, and students," Luke began. He could not stick to the formal mode, though. "Everybody, Tionne has found a story about Jedi recorded by a Toydarian. A story about Obi-Wan Kenobi. And his master. And his apprentice."

Jaina piped up, "Oh Uncle Luke, do you mean grandfather?"

"Yes! It's wonderful! We've gotten back a little more of Jedi history, and a look at how the Jedi used their powers in the Old Republic. And a little bit of family history too! Tionne, please."

Tionne stood up with her data pad and read off the story of the great pod race of Boonta Eve, as recorded by Watto.

All the students cheered and clapped. Except for Dije, who looked troubled.

Jaina jumped up and pulled her brothers to their feet and started re-enacting the race. With herself as the winner, of course.

Streen had a rare contented expression as he congratulated Luke and Tionne on finding the story. Some of the other Jedi and apprentices also told Luke how happy they were for him. But Dije collected some empty plates and levitated them into the kitchen, looking glad to have an excuse to leave the party.

Luke watched the children play pod race for a little while, and then found Dije in the kitchen. Naturally, he waited long enough to be sure she was going to be about finishing up.

"What's wrong?" Luke asked.

"Influencing someone's mind in a business deal is heinous."

"Heinous? That's a strong word. Are you sure you didn't just mean bad? This isn't your native language, after all."

"Heinous," Dije repeated, stacking the last few dishes on the counter with the Force. She did not need to dry her hands; she had not actually touched the plates. "It's a capital crime."

"They execute people for using the Jedi mind trick on Sith-ta?"

"To take advantage of normals, yes. Sith-on-Sith crime isn't crime, as long as it doesn't inconvenience anybody important. We can murder each other all we like in Sithtown, but forcing the mind of a shopkeeper who isn't a Force-user will get you hanged in the public square."

"That sounds a little extreme."

"It isn't. It's absolutely necessary. I h—I don't agree with the Governtists keeping my kind in ghettos. But they're right about protecting the common people from Force users. If the powerful just took what they wanted whenever they wanted it, the world wouldn't work. Nobody would have any reason to run a business, or farm, or anything, because they'd just lose whatever they made to any marauding Sith who happened by. The economy would fall apart and everybody would starve."

Luke nodded. "I see. You're assuming that there are lots of people proficient in the Force around all the time. Which, on Sith-ta, there are. But out here, if there's one Jedi on a given planet at a time, it's a lot."

"Can see that," Dije said. "A million space locusts will strip clean a planetary system in a week. One space locust, not so much."

"Jedi as locusts. Leave it to our resident Sith to come up with that comparison."

Dije looked up warily, but to her relief, Luke looked amused rather than offended.

"It's still wrong," Dije maintained. "When I saw the holofilm of your life, it showed Kenobi using the Jedi mind trick to avoid physical violence with the Stormtroopers, and of course that was better than killing them. But using it to take advantage of the innocent is wrong. Do you know what we call the Jedi mind trick in Sith?"

"I don't know much Sith, Dije. Beyond, ah, 'Darth'."

"Oh, that's Ancient Sith. Darth and Darthe, Lord and Lady. Only really stentor types use those outside of formal occasions and rituals. In Modern Sith it's Dra and Dere. Anyway, um." Dije turned away for a moment, suddenly embarrassed. It was clear the Jedi thought of their Mind Trick as not only normal and acceptable, but fun. "Never mind. It isn't important."

"I didn't realize the language had changed that much. So your study of the Ancient Sith writings at the Temple of Exar Kun must be quite challenging."

Dije smiled, grateful for the smooth change of topic. "It is. Um." Casting about for something else to say, Dije wildly thought, My the jungle is wet out tonight. She rejected that at once. "The only time I've ever actually called anyone Darth was at the start of my initiation party, when I came back from getting my first tattoo. It's a ritual phrase. I got the party started by saying 'Darth-nir' to my Uncle Thodvexer, to acknowledge that I am his initiate. That's a relationship that stays forever, even if you go serve another lord. Another lord can be Drani, or a lady can be Dereni, 'My Lady'. But even though I'm a Dere myself now, a Dark Lady, Lord Thodvexer will always be Darth-nir. Someday when I initiate people, I will always be Darthe-nir to them."

"It isn't really a name?"

Dije shrugged. "It can be. It's actually a fairly common given name, Darth. Nowadays. But it's a little bit like naming your kid Prince or Princess."

Luke shook his head bemusedly. From outside the kitchen door, there was a screech, a crash, and the sound of R2D2 'talking'. "I'd better go see what that was. I look forward to many more philosophical discussions."

Luke checked on the children, who were unharmed and not getting up to any more mischief than usual, and then went to the old rebel base communications room, and turned on the hypercomm unit.

Like the holonet and holocom, hypercomm was a faster-than-light form of communication, but it was mostly used for text or voice-only transmissions. He signaled Coruscant. Threepio answered.

"Master Luke, sir, so good to hear from you."

"You too, Threepio. Is anyone awake?"

"Not at this time, Master Luke. Is it an urgent matter?"

"No, don't wake them up. I actually called to talk to you."

"Oh, how kind of you, Master Luke. Might I inquire how Artoo is doing?"

"He's fine."

"That's so good to hear, Master Luke."

"Threepio, how's your Ancient and Modern Sith?"

"Oh, I am quite fluent in Sith, Master Luke, both Ancient and Modern. In fact I have recently downloaded all the latest updates and dialects."

"How does 'Jedi Mind Trick' translate into Sith?"

"In Ancient Sith, the word was Jyediko, clearly a derivative of Jedi. But as the Sith became isolated from galactic civilization, many of their words dropped referents from outworld cultures. In Modern Sith the corresponding word would be Sarav. Oh dear."

"What's 'oh dear'?" Luke asked.

"The word is clearly related to Sar, a word for a terrible crime of physical violence. Oh! How horrid!" There was a sound over the hypercomm of metal against metal. Luke imagined Threepio covering his photoreceptors.

"What crime? No, I think I know. That will be all, Threepio. Thank you."

"Oh, always ready to serve you, Master Luke." 

"Good-bye." Luke switched off the comm gear. To himself, in the empty communications room, he said, "Talk about your culture clash. She sure reminds me of Akanah sometimes. The Fallanassi think the Mind Trick is a form of violence, too."

Luke wished he could talk to Dije about the Fallanassi. But he had promised to tell no one of their existence except Leia, whom they wanted to recruit. Luke sighed with the burden of other peoples' secrets.

End of Bright Lady of the Sith. Story continues in Bright Apprentice.


	2. Chapter 2

Bright Apprentice

Fanfic by Erin Lale

Bright Apprentice is the second in the Subcasters series

It had been nearly two weeks since Dije had run out of spice. Yesterday she had gone through the kitchen in the main Temple, and found the strongest thing they had was chocolate, but no matter how much she ate it did nothing for her. The calming songs did help, but only for a little while; her agitation always came back.

Today she woke up in her nest of blankets in a side chapel of the Temple of Exar Kun, in the predawn hour when the first grey light filters through the trees and all the bird analogues and canopy amphibians sing the loudest.

She stretched, hummed a calming song and called Light. It was beautiful, it was Love, it was transcendent—and it wasn't enough.

She got up and prowled around the Temple, hungry but too agitated to eat breakfast. She went out to the statue of her maybe-ancestor and told it, "Oh gods I'm antsy. I need something. Anything. Strobe, spice, whiskey, jolt, beer, hell Partlodge I'll try anything. Crysobit. Firecracker. Moonshine. Isn't there anything around here at all, old Exar?"

Of course he did not answer. His spirit had inhabited the linked Massassi temples on this moon for thousands of years, and then had been banished just a few years before Dije arrived.

Then she remembered something that a few people on Sith-ta did to get high without drugs. She whispered again, "I'll try anything."

Dije set out for the main Temple. She did not walk at a sedate pace today, appreciating the flowers and the bird analogues, as she usually did, but ran like a hunted sand gazelle in the deserts of Sith-ta. She arrived at the main Temple just at dawn, when the red sun hit the black stone and turned it to some indescribable color like the blood of the First Sith, the Massassi janissaries of the Golden Age.

Dije slipped silently into the supply room and made off with a packing strap. Then she ran back to the Temple of Exar Kun in desperate haste, ignoring the way her heart pounded and her breath came short.

Even among the Sith, a people long noted for self-indulgence, decadence, and an affinity for anything that sounded wicked, those who reveled in Subspace were considered a bit strange. But everyone knew how it worked: by triggering the release of brain endorphins. At the neons people said the high was like mixing strobe with glitterstim.

Dije stood behind the statue and skinned out of her black shirt. She pulled the cargo strap through her hand, gauging its length, its flexibility, its weight. She hefted it and snapped it over her shoulder, striking her back. Too low. She choked up on the strap, holding the extra length in her left hand, and tried again. This time she hit between the spine and shoulder blade, perfection.

She swung again and again, with increasing strength. Now she gasped at every strike. Dije felt the high approaching, the slightly dizzy feeling just before the world opened out. But then her arms went limp and she sagged against the base of the statue, panting. She staggered upright and made another stroke, but it was weak. She teetered on the edge of the high and could not quite plunge in. She couldn't get there by herself.

Then a man appeared in the Temple. He had dark hair and wore a glistening black cape. At any other time, Dije would have grabbed for her shirt on meeting a strange man in a state of partial undress. But now he seemed like a sending from the Force, supplied to serve her need in the crucial moment.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Dije Kun."

"Kun? As in Exar Kun?" the man glanced at the back of the statue above them.

"Yes."

"Why are you in female form?"

"I don't know," Dije replied. Startled, she looked down at herself. "I never thought of it like that. Do you think we choose the forms we wear, then?"

The man came closer. "I don't know. What are you doing?"

"Trying to reach Subspace. Want to help?"

The man considered. "Am I supposed to?"

"Maybe." Dije held out the strap.

The man took it. His expression was an odd mix of emotions: confusion, awe, and a desire for something—but whatever it was, it wasn't her. But at that moment, Dije did not care, as long as he brought her to Subspace.

Dije turned around and placed her hands on the cool stone of the statue's plinth.

The man brought the packing strap down over her back. Dije did not move. He swung again, hard. Dije make a little gasp, but stayed still.

Encouraged, the man struck her again and again, creating a rhythm like Massassi drumbeats during a festival of sacrifice. The world spun. The universe opened for her, time and space bent. There was a black roaring silence, full of stars, planets, nebulae, galaxies without end.

Then he stopped. Dije collapsed to the ground, giggling softly. "Mmmm. Thank you."

"Did you reach Subspace?" the man asked.

"Yes."

"What does it look like?"

"Like space. Only slightly skewed."

"Interesting. I've never seen a mathematical principle. Or another dimension. I hope your soul will be happy there. Goodbye, Kun."

Then the man set the strap down beside her and walked away.

Dije fell into dreams, and the sun climbed high in the sky. The light bathed her welted back. She spun with the spiral galaxies, and drifted with the solar winds.

Then she awoke abruptly with a sharp pain in her leg. She sat bolt upright, dizzy and sick. A predatory badger-lizard had just taken a bite out of her!

She reached for the Force, to push the creature away, and the Force did not respond to her. She tried again, kicking at the badger-lizard, but could not connect to the Light. The predator snarled at her, baring its sharp teeth, and attacked. Dije reached for fear then; but even the Dark Side had abandoned her.

She scrambled up, kicking. The world was still spinning, and she stumbled drunkenly. The large scaly animal jumped on her leg and sank its teeth into her again.

Dije tottered and fell against the statue, and clung to it, shaking her leg, trying to dislodge the badger-lizard. But its jaws were locked into her. Where was the Force? She had never failed to connect to it when she reached for it in panic, never in her life. Except in a suppression field or a ysalamir bubble, but there was nobody around to create one here. The Dark Side was her friend, even when she rejected it. It was always there, ready, eager. But now it was gone.

Brain chemicals, she realized. I depleted my supply of brain chemicals.

The creature sank its claws into her leg, released its jaws and jumped for her neck.

Dije fended it off with her arm. The badger-lizard bit into her arm and clung, angling for another shot at her throat. She slammed it into the stone statue. Its bite weakened, but Dije could not keep her balance. She fell over and landed on her red back, and shrieked.

Anger surged through her. There was no answer from the Dark Side. Dije pounded the arm with the badger-lizard attached into the paving stones, in a fury, but with only her own feeble, dizzied physical strength behind it, the predator did not seem hurt. It leapt for her throat again.

Everything whirled before her eyes. Dije grabbed for the badger-lizard as it flew at her neck. She fumbled her first catch, but then seized it by the tail and flung it away from her. It landed and poised itself to rush again.

Dije hauled herself up, leaning against the plinth for support, and made the loudest, ugliest growl she could. The creature paused. It was working!

Dije waved her arm and yelled. The predator considered her, then melted into the forest.

Dije heaved a sigh of relief and clung to the base of the statue. "Who knew the game of threat and counterthreat works on animals?" She caught her breath. "Well, old Exar, that was a magnificent high, but I'm never doing that again. I can't stand being weak and vulnerable."

Dije was in the Temple infirmary, disinfecting her badger-lizard bites. Anakin was Force-juggling a pair of bright yellow balls and glancing at her leg and arm as she worked, trying not to appear squeamish.

"That sounds like quite a fight. How come you didn't just shoo the animal away with the Force?"

"I couldn't, right then," Dije responded. She sprayed on the liquid bandage and waited for it to dry. She was not about to admit to Anakin what she had been doing just before the animal attack. "Sometimes the Force doesn't work right for me."

Anakin nodded. "That place you live in is nasty, Dije. It's strong in the Dark Side. Uncle Luke uses it to test people, you know. He sends people out to visit the haunted ruin to see if they're ready to be knighted. Everybody's scared of that place. Except you."

"Is that what that feeling is? The Dark Side? I suppose that makes sense. It doesn't really seem all that strong to me."

"Why do you live there?"

"Just homesick, I guess. Which is dumb, because I hated living on Sith-ta."

"I'm surprised you can be a Jedi at all," Anakin said, plucking the toys out of the air and putting them in a pocket. "Uncle Luke told my parents that if we, that is me and Jacen and Jaina, were exposed to the Dark Side before we were two, it would twist us forever. Mom and Dad had us go live on Anoth, with mom's lady in waiting Winter and a bunch of droids. Nobody else lived on the whole planet. When I came 'home' to Coruscant I didn't even know who mom and dad were. I don't remember that, but Winter does. She remembers everything."

"That's sick," Dije said. She tested the liquid bandage and decided to let it air some more. "Raising a kid is the parents' job, nobody should have to be without their parents like that. If they wanted you to grow up without other people around to influence you, they should have gone with you."

"They were busy. Mom was the running the Republic, and Dad was helping her, or going off to save the galaxy. They still do that. For a while we lived with them, before we came to the Academy, but most of the time Winter and the droids were the only ones around our apartments anyway."

Dije tested the wounds again, found they were dry, and started wrapping them up. "My parents said awful things, and hit me sometimes. But they never thought there was anything more important they ought to be doing than raising me. They certainly never shipped me off with a servant for 2 years after I was born. I—don't hate them anymore." Dije felt her biggest reservoir of the Dark Side slip away.

"Good," Anakin said. "Hating is wrong. Are you better now?"

"Yes." Dije put the medical supplies away.

"Then let me show you the game I rebuilt. I think it used to be a pilot simulator. It's up on the fourth floor."

"OK. That sounds like fun."

The repair room was outsized for the modest needs of the Jedi Academy. But it had once served the Rebel base, and had seemed cramped at the time. Metal tables that had once been individual technicians' work stations now held only a scattering of equipment. Cheap plasform shelves that had been hastily screwed into the stone walls, not quite level, now were mostly bare. Some odd junk left over from the days of the Rebel Alliance still gathered dust in the corners.

Luke had R2D2 up on one of the tables, an easy feat for Luke's powers of levitation. R2 whistled and hooted while Luke carefully replaced a part that had worn out with age.

Kyp Durron appeared in full Jedi robes. "Master Skywalker."

"Ah. Very formal today, Kyp. So I take it that means you've decided you're ready?" The Master himself was wearing a sweat-stained tank of indeterminate color, and old pilot fatigue pants.

"I have. It's taken me a few hours to sort through my peculiar vision. But I agree now."

"We'll hold the ceremony tomorrow, then. Just after the evening meal, so everyone can attend. I can't tell you how pleased I am that you're going to be a Master."

"Thank you."

"So would you care to share the peculiar vision? Just curious. You don't have to."

Kyp boosted himself up on the repair bench near R2D2, his attempt at formality forgotten. "When I spoke to you before, when I wasn't sure I was ready to be a Master, I was thinking that I wasn't really certain I'd gotten clean of the dark side."

Luke nodded, and went back to fussing with the droid. "I can relate to that. So this vision proved something to you?"

"I thought I should confront my doubts. So I went out to the Temple of Exar Kun."

"Oh, did you meet Dije?"

"You've seen her too?"

"Well, sure. I brought her here."

"Why? Wait, how?"

"Um, to study at the Praxeum, and in the resupply shuttle. Oh, I see. Kyp, you thought she was a Force vision?"

"Yes. Kun. It's the same name."

"That it is." Luke finished putting in the replacement part.

"So she's a real person." Kyp sounded unduly horrified, and Luke set down his tools and looked at Kyp. The dark haired Jedi looked slightly sick. "And you expected me to find her, if I went to the Temple of Exar Kun."

"She lives out there, most of the time. When she isn't studying with Tionne or me."

"She lives there? Aren't you concerned?"

R2 blatted for attention, and Luke closed the access port.

"No. If it were anybody else, sure. But Dije is the last person I would worry about turning to the dark side, especially turning just from being in a place that's strong in the dark side. She's from Sith-ta."

"So she is a Sith. One of the ones from the New Sith War?"

"Yes."

"So you saved her."

"The other way around. When I was on Sith-ta… well, my blood runs cold to think about it." Luke had promised Leia to keep angasine a secret, so he cut off what he was going to say. He would only tell other Jedi about it if they were planning on going to the Planet of the Sith. "In any case, I am concerned about some aspects of her training, but I don't worry about her turning. Like you and me, she's already been forged in the crucible of the dark side. I sense in her the potential she has for Mastery someday."

Startled at the way the second idea seemed to flow from the first, Kyp asked, "Surely you don't mean the Dark Side is the road to being a Master."

Luke delayed answered by levitating R2 back to the floor. The droid whistled and beeped.

"Great challenges make us rise to meet them. Or fail completely, of course. Like Corusca gems formed in the terrible pressure of that gas giant out there." Luke waved vaguely at the stone ceiling. "Some come out stunningly beautiful. Others are so flawed the miners toss them out the airlock rather than waste hold space on them."

"So you and I are the gems, huh?" Kyp asked with a half smile.

"Cut and polished," Luke affirmed, continuing the metaphor. "Dije's still in the rough, but I think she's going to really sparkle someday."

"Sometimes I think you're really strange, Luke."

The large computer and the two pods had indeed once been a flight simulator, and now they were again. Naturally, when Anakin fixed them, he had loaded the combat programs. Pod 1 was a duplicate of an X-wing fighter cockpit. It could be flown alone against the computer, or with a competitor in Pod 2 flying a Tie Interceptor.

Right now the instrument panel was not responding. Anakin fiddled with the pod, with the computer, and then the pod again, and nothing seemed to help. "I had it working!" Anakin whined. "Now when I try to show it off it won't go!"

Anakin tried a technique he had seen his father, Han Solo, use on the Millenium Falcon: he banged the side of the machine with his fist. It didn't help.

Frustrated, Anakin pointed at the instrument panel and snarled, "Work, machine!"

The X-wing simulator came to life with a rising hum, and the board went through its startup sequence.

"Careful with that, Anakin."

"I won't break it. I know what I'm doing."

"Don't mean the game set. I mean your feelings. Hasn't anybody told you yet what you're doing when you use the Force while you're furious?"

"It's just a machine. I didn't hurt anybody."

"I know, Anakin. That's my own talent. You can fix things with the Force because you understand electrical flows. It's the building block that leads to becoming a Dark Lord."

Anakin gasped and turned from the game to stare at her, and tears sprang from his eyes.

"Oh, don't cry, Anakin. Just be careful." Awkwardly, Dije leaned into the pod and put an arm around the boy.

From out in the corridor came the distinctive sound of an astromech droid 'talking'. Luke's voice responded, "Yes, Artoo, we're almost there. Yes, I believe you. The X-wing simulator was supposed to be beyond repair, that's why the Alliance left it here. Well of course you can help me fly it."

Luke came in to see Dije lift Anakin out of the simulator pod, give him a hug and set him on the ground.

"Everybody always thinks I'm about to morph into a Sith right in front of them," Anakin sniffled. "But you're the first person who's actually said it to me. Nobody whispers about Jacen and Jaina like that." Anakin turned to Luke and cried, "What were my parents thinking when they named me Anakin?"

Luke sat down to bring himself eye level with his nephew, and responded, "I think it was your mother's way of making peace with the past. It's a nice idea, actually. I think if I ever have a son, I'll name him Ben."

Anakin protested, "Ben Kenobi was one of the good guys!"

Luke replied, "From a certain point of view."

R2D2 glided over to the X-wing pod and beeped and booped excitedly.

Luke smiled at his droid. "Sure, Artoo. Let's see what's she's got. Plug in. You're going to help Anakin fly the X-wing. I'll fly it later. Right now I'm going to be in the Tie." Luke ruffled Anakin's hair. "Better get your flight time in now, before Jaina discovers you've rebuilt this thing."

Anakin wiped his face on the sleeve of his small Jedi robe and got back in the simulator.

"Want to learn to fly it too, Dije?"

"Could I?"

"Sure. Why not? You're next after Anakin."

"I'd love to learn to fly. Thank you. If I ever find myself on a ship like the Exporter again, maybe I could actually do something about it, if I were a pilot. A pilot and a Jedi, that is."

"Oh?" Luke asked as he popped the canopy on Pod 2.

"I'm not happy about some of the things I had to do to get here," Dije said quietly. She did not elaborate, and Luke didn't ask. He closed himself into the Tie pod and began his attack run.

Luke and Anakin swooped and dived at each other in the virtual reality of the simulators, but Luke did not pay much attention to his flying. Although Anakin had repaired the sims, and was familiar with the controls, he was not a very challenging opponent for Luke.

Instead, Luke extended his Force senses to Dije. After his conversation with Kyp, he wanted to reassure himself that she was not surrounded by shadows. Her Force presence was bright but not strong, like pale sunlight filtering through the fogs of the jungle. There were jagged red points in her aura. Dije was injured.

Luke let himself be "vaped" to end the game and climbed out of the pod.

Anakin jumped out of the X-wing simulator accusing, "You let me win! You weren't really trying!"

"I did, I'm sorry. When I stretched out with the Force I felt Dije's pain."

"I'm fine," Dije said. "Badger-lizard bites. No big deal."

"Oh?" Luke brightened. "Good. Let me see."

Dije pulled up her sleeve to show the dressing on her arm. She started to pull her sleeve back down but Luke took her arm and unwrapped the wound. "Perfect," he said. "Just enough."

Anakin asked, "You're glad she's hurt?"

"This is an excellent opportunity for you to learn a Jedi healing technique."

"Ah," Dije nodded. "Of course."

"Feel what I'm doing. Feel that?"

Dije saw clearly what Luke did in the Force: pouring Force energy into the body's natural healing abilities, speeding up the process of healing but not actually changing anything by itself. This was not a vurgh's natural ability to manipulate biologicals, it was pure brute strength applied to energizing the white cells and other existing healing capacities of the body. Her wound closed, scabbed over, and sloughed off the liquid bandage.

"Yes. I think I can copy that." Dije tried it, and the scab advanced and dried a little. "Yes. I can do it. I can see it from the inside, with the Force. It doesn't look too impressive on the outside, though."

"You'll get better at it with practice. Your turn, Anakin." Luke pulled Dije's arm down toward the boy. "Could you feel what we were doing?"

Anakin held his small hand over Dije's wound, and the scab grew old and fell off, leaving pink skin underneath. Anakin yawned and sat down blinking.

"I know, it's really tiring," Luke said. "It really isn't practical to use for things like this, since it takes so much out of you. Dije, your first aid would be the better response to this kind of injury, except that what you learn practicing on small wounds can be applied to more serious matters."

"I understand," Dije said. "Can imagine using that to save someone's life."

"Or give yourself an edge in combat," Luke said. "Experienced fighters know when they've given someone a wound that should take them out of the fight. People who just won't die can seem supernatural. So. Up for your first flight lesson?"

"Sure."

Ongreya flew a swoop through the endless skies of Bespin. Wind flapped in her clothes, but even a gale could not stir her blonde hair, because it was not real. It was only the projection of her human seeming.

She landed on a small platform next to other swoops and speederbikes. "We're here to heal three people caught in a love triangle. Let's drop in on them."

Ongreya entered a bar called the Serpentine, favored by former hard rock miners who had migrated to the Tibanna gas mine to follow the money. She went over to a table where a grubby male and female human sat nursing their drinks in sullen silence.

"I'm Ongreya the Psy Healer. I felt your pain call out to me across the stars. I can help you."

The female said, "We don't need your mumbo jumbo, witch. Get lost."

But the male said, "Hey, wait a minute, aren't you that actress who was in Eternity? Yeah, I know you! Sit down!"

The female said, "You idiot, Wembal. What would a holofeature actress be doing in the Serpentine? She's some kind of con artist out to—"

Then Ongreya exerted her power, and the female sat blinking. "Of course, sit down. You can help us?"

Ongreya sat down. "Yes. Tell me of your pain."

"I'm not sure who the father of my baby is. It might be Wembal, but it might be Trorian. And Trorian owes me my furniture back."

Ongreya let them spill out all their troubles for the holocam. This was going to take several days, at least. She had to get the couple to a medical center for a paternity test, before this could be fully healed. Her viewers were going to eat this up.

"Upward block. Downward block. Parry. Thrust. Left block. Right block. Chop. Chop like you mean it, Dije."

Instead of continuing to drill against nobody, Dije turned to look at Luke, standing well back from her inexpert saber swinging. They were in slanty early morning sunlight, and the bird analogues were chirping riotously. They were both in Jedi uniforms, but without the cumbersome over-robes. In the yellow light, his hair looked as blonde as it had when he was a child on Tatooine.

"Not a day goes by when you aren't trying to get me to me more aggressive. Are you trying to turn me?"

"That's not funny, Dije."

"Not meant to be. I'm serious. How many of your students have turned to the dark side?"

Luke walked to conversational distance, counting on his fingers. "Counting or not counting the ones who came back?"

"The fact that you actually have to stop and think to count them all speaks volumes. Are you sure you aren't like the vurgh in the Ziost tale of Tedow and the Marble Plague?"

"The what?"

"Oh. I guess you wouldn't have Ziost tales. We call them that because they all start 'once on Ziost'. It was the ancient capital of the first Sith, who were not Force users but were ruled by the Dark Lords of the Sith. Who were originally Dark Jedi, I suppose. The name sort of stuck."

"Tell me the tale," Luke invited. He sat down in front of her, reminding her for a moment of a small boy settling in to listen to a fairy tale. But his intense gaze was not that of an innocent.

Dije told the story:

Once on Ziost, there was a young vurgh named Tedow. He lived with his grandfather and loved him very much. One day his grandfather got sick with the Marble Plague, that makes its victims' skin look like marble.

Tedow healed his grandfather, and everyone said he was a hero. They cheered him on the street.

Then Tedow's neighbor came down with Marble Plague. Tedow healed him, and all the villagers said he was a wonderful boy. The bakery man gave him free pastries and all the girls smiled at him.

Tedow grew up to be a great vurgh with a thriving practice. But he missed being a hero. He secretly wished the Marble Plague would come back so he could heal someone of it. He did not consciously wish anyone ill, but he often daydreamed of the shape and life of the Marble Plague germ.

One day one of his patients, Mrs. Blun, came to see him for a standard rejuvenation. She had been using too much Force energy and it had marred her beauty. He restored her face, but deep inside he missed the glory of the Marble Plague. In a stray thought, he imagined it as he was healing her.

A week later Mrs. Blun was back. She had marble streaks all over her face. She had the Marble Plague.

Tedow healed her, and she was so grateful that she have him a famous artwork to display in his waiting room. Everyone admired it. Tedow felt good every time he looked at the art, because he had cured the Marble Plague.

Then a little boy named Shadix fell out of his play fort and broke his leg. Tedow healed him, but Tedow let his thought stray to the Marble Plague organism. A week later, Shadix was back in Tedow's office. His leg was mottled and hot. He had the Marble Plague. Tedow healed him, and Tedow was proud of himself and felt good because he had cured the Marble Plague.

Then his Lord, Markos, was in battle with another Lord and got burned. He came to Tedow for healing. Tedow healed him, but a week later he was back. He had the Marble Plague.

Tedow healed him. Then Lord Markos struck him with a lightning bolt.

Markos said, "You have caused the Marble Plague. You must die to protect the people."

Tedow screamed in pain and begged, "Please don't kill me. My patients need me!"

But Markos said, "Your patients are better off without you and the Marble Plague!" And zapped him with lightning.

Tedow cried, "I only wanted to help people!"

Markos hit him with the lightning until Tedow passed out. Then he zapped him again and killed Tedow. And no one in the village ever came down with Marble Plague again.

Dije finished the story and fell silent. Luke stood up. Softly, he asked, "So you think I'm deliberately turning my students to the Dark Side so that I can have the pleasure of saving them?"

"Not deliberately. Not on purpose. Unconsciously, like Tedow."

Luke thought for a moment. Then he asked, "Do you know what I think?"

Dije shrugged, feeling too intimidated to speak.

But then Luke grinned his boyish grin. "I think you're making tremendous progress."

"What?" Delighted approval had been the last thing she expected from him right then.

"The whole time you were telling that story, you've been holding an activated lightsaber in your hand. You weren't afraid."

Dije glanced down. Sure enough, the yellow blade was still there.

Luke continued, "And you aren't afraid now. Your concern for me overcame your fear. I think that's the key. That's why you could levitate yourself safely to the ground at the hotel on Sith-ta, but not here when you got up into that tree that one time. I think you have a need to focus your concern on someone besides yourself in order to keep your fear at bay. Eventually you'll be able to set aside your fear even when no one else is around, but in the meantime, we can use this. I think you're ready to spar. As long as we keep talking while we're sparring."

"And— am I right or wrong about you?"

"That will be the topic of conversation. En garde." Luke activated his green lightsaber.

Dije swallowed hard and assumed a defensive posture.

Luke tapped his blade against hers, just enough to produce the characteristic sizzle noise. "Do you know what bothered me about that fairy tale?"

Luke swung a little wider, making Dije respond to block. They moved in slow motion, not yet truly sparring.

"What?" Dije asked in a distracted tone, her eyes tracking the cat-eye glow of Luke's green blade.

"Both the healer and the Dark Lord seemed to be motivated by altruism."

He swung again, and again Dije blocked. Encouraged, Luke started moving the sword a little faster.

"Well, sure," Dije responded, batting his blade aside. "If the Sith couldn't feel that toward our own people we wouldn't have lasted long. We'd have gotten into one too many civil wars and blown ourselves up, or something."

"I would have expected a Sith folk tale to be full of evil. Full of the Dark Side." Luke advanced a step. Dije fell back and blocked.

"But it was," Dije responded. "You just don't know it when you see it."

Experimentally, Luke retreated a pace, and Dije automatically advanced to stay in range. Their laser swords clashed again.

"I do recognize it when I see it, or feel it," Luke countered. He continued to attack, and Dije continued to block. "I know the feel of it well. There was nothing of evil in the story of Tedow. He wanted to save lives, and so did Markos."

"The service of life is something the Sith and the Jedi share," Dije said. "The Force is Life. That's the first lesson and the last. That's what it means to be a Sith."

"Sith destroy," Luke contended. He put a little more muscle behind his attack, and Dije altered her grip on the yellow bladed lightsaber to compensate. "Vader never tried to save Alderaan. He could have sent the Death Star someplace else."

At last Dije stopped using purely defensive strategies and began to counterattack. "Vader was a poser. I'm the real thing."

Luke smiled, either in amusement or in satisfaction at Dije's progress. He parried and riposted at full speed and strength. "That's an ominous thing to say in the middle of a lightsaber fight."

"This isn't a fight. It's a game," Dije said, her voice gone slightly breathless with exertion. She circled and attacked. "In a real fight I'd have you flat on your back in five seconds."

Luke grinned as he blocked. "Those are big words for your very first time sparring with a saber. Show me."

Dije aimed a sweeping cut across his torso, at an angle that made Luke naturally lean slightly back as he blocked. But the block did nothing. His blade was no longer lit. Dije's lightsaber passed through the space where his blade should have been and kept on coming. Luke realized the only way to avoid it would be to drop, and he did.

He had planned to hit the ground with his feet still planted and bounce back like a gymnast, but while his shoulders were still on their way to the forest floor, Dije made a cut at his feet to force him to move them. Luke ended up flat on his back on the ground, still holding his deactivated lightsaber hilt.

Luke blinked up at her. She had a foot on his chest in victory. "Good fight, Dije. I won't underestimate you again. You can let me up now."

Dije held the pose for a second, and there was something truly chilling in her eyes. But then it passed. She stepped back and turned off her lightsaber.

Luke sprung up, clipped his lightsaber hilt to his belt, and brushed leaves off the back of his head. "What did you do?"

"You forgot you were fighting a Dark Lady. I control electrical flows."

"You drained the battery."

"I could just as easily have overloaded the battery and made your lightsaber blow up. I could do that to your artificial hand, and turn it into a hand grenade."

A child's laughter broke into their conversation. They turned to see they had gathered an audience, probably attracted by the sound of clashing lightsabers. The Solo children and their gang, a handful of other apprentices, and Streen the former Bespin hermit, all stood and watched from the edge of the glade. Jacen giggled, "Hand grenade! I get it! Hand grenade!"

"Oh, great," Luke commented. "So you all got to see the great Luke Skywalker, legendary lightsaber duelist, lose to a fourteen year old girl."

A ripple of amusement went through the apprentices, but Streen looked grim.

"So what did we learn from this?" Luke asked, back in teaching mode.

Anakin asked, "Um, don't fight Dije 'cause you'll fall on your behind?"

Jason snickered, and a second later his twin, Jaina, picked up his amusement and giggled. One of the other children poked Anakin and hissed for him to be serious, while another one agreed, "This is a fact."

"Anybody else?" Luke asked.

Unselfconsciously, Dije clipped her lightsaber hilt to her belt.

Another apprentice offered, "Watch out for tricks?"

Luke nodded. "Always. Dije, what should we learn from this?"

"If you ever have to fight someone with these tattoos," Dije pointed to her cheek tattoos with both pointer fingers, "throw your lightsaber away. That goes double for blasters. Anything with a power pack, get rid of it. And don't stand too close to your droid."

Luke smiled. "There you have it. This lesson is over."

The Acquisition Team cruised the nightclub Pepperwall. Laser glitter sprinkled from the ceiling of the entranceway, and multicolored lights came from all directions. The band played from cubes on the far wall, opposite the bar. The thump of the drums was as loud as a starship taking off.

In the center was the zero-gee dance area. It had been there for decades, through so many changes of name and ownership that the locals didn't bother learning what name was on the sign out front, but just called it the grav bar. Many people, humans and aliens, singles, couples, and groups, whirled through the air to the beat of the music.

There were many young lovelies here for the Acquisition Team to choose from. As always, they concentrated on those who were here by themselves, looking lonely, even desperate.

"Check out that one. No, the blonde in the red number with the lights on the hem. Nobody wears something like that in antigravity unless she's an exhibitionist."

"Good choice. Young, pretty. Human or close enough. Dancing by herself. Got her purse strapped to her belt."

"Yup. That means she's got nobody to watch it for her at a table."

"OK. Slime me." He held out his gloved hands and his companion handed him a tube. He squeezed some of the paste from the tube into his left hand, capped the tube and put it away in a seal-case, and pocketed it. He worked his left hand to make the paste less noticeable. Then he walked to the floor beneath the dancers, stepped into the antigrav and soared up toward his target.

He got close to her, jostled and touched her bare arm with the left hand, as if unused to zero-g. "Sorry." Then he moved away and waited. It only took a few seconds before she simply dozed off.

He collected her snoring form and pulled her off the dance floor. His companion met him where the gravity started and they moved her out of the bar as if she were merely drunk. No one challenged them. The bouncer at the door was there to keep riffraff out, not drunken women in. They got to their groundcar and the one in the gloves pealed them off, deposited them in a seal-case and pocketed that too.

Then they took her to the studio, where Hareng was already preparing the cameras for a subcast of Purple Tears Live.

The Yavin jungle was oddly still and silent in the oppressive heat. From the pinnacle of the ziggurat of the main temple, Luke and his apprentices looked down on the treetops: a sea of deep green, punctuated by air-growing flowers, bird analogues, and furred creatures that spread their arm flaps and soared from tree to tree. But nothing made a sound.

Black clouds billowed overhead in a sudden, wet wind. Dije felt the hair on the back of her head stand on end. "Storm coming," she said.

Anakin whispered, "I have a bad feeling…"

Luke glanced up at the clouds, considering whether to call off the planned exercise until the weather changed. But then he shrugged a little. The Academy was in a rainforest. If he wanted it dry, he should have stayed on Tatooine. And with that thought, he decided a good drenching would never hurt anyone.

Then Luke felt it, too: a strange energy against his skin. Dije shouted something in her native language, and the dark clouds flashed with brilliant light.

There was a crackling sound and Anakin stood sheathed in blue fire. "Aaaa!" He sounded frightened but not in pain. St. Elmo's Fire climbed his body like coiling serpents.

Then the thunder clapped like missiles bursting in air, and the rain came down.

"Ground it out!" Dije shouted. "You can do it! This is your talent! It's too early, you're too young to call it, but you can direct it!"

Anakin raised his arms and tried to send the lightning back into the storm, but it circled just a few inches from his hands and fed back on itself. Anakin shrieked in a higher pitch.

Luke took a few steps forward, wanting to help but not knowing what to do.

Anakin shucked the lighting off of himself like brushing dust from his arms, and it sank into the black stone of the temple. Then the whole temple groaned and shuddered as the pyramid did what it was designed to do: amplify energy, and the Force.

Suddenly the fire shot back up Anakin through his feet and crackled around him like barbs on a net of wire. There was a stink of charring flesh.

"Help!"

"To me!" Dije called, holding out her hands. "Throw it to me!"

Anakin made as if to cast it back down to the Temple.

Dije yelled, "No! The Temple will step it up! Throw it to me! There's nothing safe up here to ground it in!"

Anakin caught on fire.

"Anakin! I have to learn to do this sooner or later!"

But Anakin would not cast at Dije. Dije skidded over the slick wet rock and grabbed his hands. The lightning flowed into her. She screamed and fell onto the shining black stone. Then the lightning was gone.

Luke rushed to Anakin, but the rain had already put the fire out. "Anakin. I'm going to put you into a healing trance. Pay attention and you can help me do it." Luke gently lay Anakin on the stone and concentrated. The boy gamely reached toward Luke's power and rode along with it, always learning, always the apprentice, even now. Anakin closed his eyes as the rain hit his burns and steam rose from him.

Then Luke went to Dije. She groaned and waved off his assistance.

"Are you alright?"

"I feel like I lost a turf war." Dije rolled and got her hands underneath her, and got to her feet with a whimper. "So that's what this temple is really for," she commented. Then she swooned, took a step back and slipped.

Luke caught her. "Come on. Let's all get inside. Some of you, carry Anakin to his room and get him into something dry."

End of Bright Apprentice. The story continues in The Lost Art.


	3. Chapter 3

The Lost Art

This chapter of the Subcasters series comes after Bright Apprentice

Sun-yellow and balefire-green clashed in the black stone temple. The whizzing hum and buzz of lightsabers did not make conversation impossible, only loud.

"You've become quite accomplished with that blade, Dije. But don't worry, I'm not making you a present of it. I'll give you a break tomorrow instead. Happy birthday."

"Is it my birthday?" Chop, block, evade.

"I had Artoo compare Sith-ta's planetary calendar with Coruscant's. You're 16." Thrust and parry, cross-step, turn.

"I've been here over a year?!"

"No, you've been here 7 months. Sith-ta's rotation is slower than the galactic standard calendar."

Distracted, Dije misstepped and the pale sleeve of her Jedi ghi got a black singe mark on it. When she had first arrived, such an accident would have made her gasp in terror, but Dije did not even blink.

"Hmm. On second thought, maybe I will give you a lightsaber for your birthday. Or, any deadly weapon of your choice."

"Always with the weapons. You training Jedi or a commando team?"

"Don't Sith use weapons?"

"Well sure. But most of the places a Sith bodyguard goes don't allow weapons. So we don't rely on them."

They circled, striking and blocking, the flurry of parries and ripostes almost a dance.

"Besides," Dije continued. "Wouldn't a purely defensive weapon be more appropriate to the guardians of peace and justice?"

"There's no such thing as a purely defensive weapon." Luke lunged and then cut low, making Dije flip backwards like an acrobat, a move Luke himself had pioneered.

"Sure there is." Dije made a roundhouse feint and then a quick change into a two-handed side thrust, but the feint did not fool Luke, and he blocked effortlessly. "A lanvarrok is a purely defensive weapon. It can't be used to kill, or maim, or even stun. Its only purpose is to disarm a Jedi and level the playing field."

"A lightsaber does that well enough." Cut, block, cut.

"But a lanvarrok doesn't do it in such a horrifyingly literal fashion."

"That's a really, really bad pun, Dije. I'm going to get you for that."

Luke put on such a menacing face that Dije backed up, saber drifting away from ready guard, certain she had gone too far and made him angry. She wanted to reach out with the Force and deactivate his laser sword, the way she had in their first sparring session, but a spike of fear was in her way. She desperately reached for calm, realized that was only driving it further away, and started thinking a serenity song to herself, cursing how slow she was with the light side.

But then Luke laughed. "Bad pun, but a very funny expression on your face."

He made a playful chop and Dije blocked and counterattacked.

She smiled. "Made a joke in a foreign language. I should get points for effort."

Dije bounced her blade off a block and whirled the other direction, and was blocked again. If anyone had been watching, it would have almost looked like a choreographed ballet.

"Tionne gets the points. Did she tell you she thinks she's reached the limit of what she can teach you?"

"Got that impression. But I'm already working with you a lot. Don't need to leave Tionne. I'm content."

"Are you?"

Clash, clash.

"With my Master, anyway."

They spun, jumped, advanced and retreated, crashing their lightsabers against each other or ducking out of the way, seeking momentary opportunities. The light of their battle flashed on the stone walls of the practice room.

"That's enough for today," Luke decided. They deactivated their sabers, clipped them to their belts, and went through a stretching routine. "Are you having doubts that the Jedi way is your path?"

"No. Just because I argue a lot doesn't mean I want to go home and go back to the Dark Side."

"I didn't think you did."

"What, then? What other alternative is there?"

Luke hesitated just a little too long. For a moment, Dije thought he was hiding something. But then she remembered how she had misread him during sparring, and dismissed the notion.

"I think you're going to need a new uniform pretty soon," Luke changed the subject. "All that running you do is paying off."

"Oh!" Dije glanced down at her cream and brown Jedi outfit. "Thanks. I guess it is kind of getting loose. I run because I like it, though." Dije had discovered runner's high. It was a magnificent ride and it didn't leave her feeling weak afterwards.

Jacen and Anikin were playing with one of Jacen's pets, a small furred creature with googly eyes. "Is Jaina hogging the sim again?" Jacen asked.

Anikin shrugged. "I don't like machines anymore."

"Why not?"

"I just don't."

But it was not machines that Anikin no longer liked, it was his own talent with them. The flight simulator was where Dije had made the connection for him between his gift with machines and the Force-lightning. Up on top of the temple, during the storm, he had transformed regular lightning into Force-lightning and had nearly incinerated himself. Anikin had not yet been at the Academy when Gantoris crisped himself trying to use the Dark Side under the tutelage of Exar Kun, but he had certainly heard stories about it. Anikin wanted nothing more to do with the power of electricity ever again.

Anakin said, "Show me how you make an animal come to you."

"Sure." Jacen stretched out with the Force and opened the cage of a brightly colored bird analogue. Then he changed his focus in the Force to the mind of the creature, and it flew to his hand.

"That's really wow."

"You try it." Anikin didn't get it the first time. But he would keep practicing.

Luke was only listening to Tionne and Dije's song with half his attention. He was distracted by planning the supply list for the next supply run. The Academy's isolation had its good points and its bad points; having to import so many things was definitely in the latter category.

But he jolted to attention when he heard the word Fallanassi. No, he thought. I must have imagined it.

But there it was again. The word was repeated many times in the song, and he was sure he heard the word Jedi too. Like all Dije's songs, it was in the Sith language, so its meaning was not readily apparent.

After the post-dinner concert, Luke approached Dije as Tionne was loosening the strings on her mando-twin. He made conversation as the other students filed out, clearly wanting to speak with her alone, and waited until everyone else had gone.

"I'm certain I heard you say Fallanassi. What do you know of them?" Luke asked.

"It tells the story of the Sisters of the Dreaming Goddess, a sad tale from the beginning of the Blockade. They were a small branch of the Fruitioners who believed the material world is an illusion, and set out to prove it by learning to create illusory landscapes, chimerical creatures, and phantasms out of Fruitioner mythology. They invented the lost art of illusion. They used it for ritual, and also for entertainment. Eventually they started using it to do good works. Like all the Fruitioners, they were pacifists. One of them tried to convert a group of Sith to pacifism by teaching them the philosophy of the Dreaming Goddess, Falla in the Sith tongue. Both the Goddess and the belief. And in the process, also taught the Sith the art of illusion. That's where my people got it from. Of course the Sith used it for combat, in the Sith-Jedi war. Because of this, the Jedi of the time—at least according to the story passed down on Sith-ta, which is naturally prejudiced against Jedi—tried to eradicate the Sisters. They succeeded in destroying all the Sith and Fruitioners on Sith-ta who knew the art of illusion, and all the knowledge of how to create the illusions, before blockading the planet. But one group of Sisters had been far away from Sith-ta during the war, off on a mission of mercy in the Outer Rim on the other side of the galaxy. They got word of the Blockade and the Hunt, and hid themselves with their powers of illusion. They sent messages to Sith-ta, telling how they were going to elude the Hunt by moving from place to place, using illusion, and continuing their work for the Goddess. Legend says they're still out there, on a ship, going from world to world, saving lives, preserving cultures, helping people with their illusions. Still running from the Jedi."

"That would explain so much."

Dije shrugged. "Of course, this song tells the story from the perspective of people on Sith-ta."

"I'm inclined to think it's probably largely true. Let's go take a stroll around the jungle."

"Sure."

It was night. The jungle was still hot and humid, and filled with strange cries and rustlings.

Luke made a ball of light appear in the air. It lit their way as they walked about the path toward the stone grove, the place where apprentices practiced lifting rocks. "This is the art of illusion," Luke said. "It isn't the Force. The Fallanassi call it the White Current."

Dije made a breathy noise, attempting speech, and finally whispered, "The lost art?"

Then Luke told her about Akanah. How a Fallanassi heretic had left the Circle and taken her child with her, and how the child Akanah had grown up and sought them out and rejoined them, along the way pulling Luke out of his hermitage with the promise of finding his mother. A promise that turned out to be false. Akanah had lied to him all along, and Luke had not noticed.

"So much for the vaunted Jedi ability to detect falsehood. But I got the impression they would not have taught me any more than Akanah already had, even if it had been true. If the song's tale is true, and the Jedi were their ancient enemies, it finally makes sense."

Dije giggled. "The Fallanassi are nuns, Luke. Of course you can't join them."

"You mean they're all women?"

"At least they were before the Blockade."

"I've been wanting to tell you about them for a long time. I've often wondered if that is your true path. Your moral views are nearly identical to theirs."

"Views on violence, you mean?"

"Yes."

"I've gotten used to the idea of fighting."

"Yes. You've made great progress, Dije. You could be a Jedi any time. Your skills are complete. All you have to do is make the decision. And make yourself a lightsaber. It's an important symbol."

"I have thought about it," Dije said. "I've looked over the circuit diagrams you gave me until I have them memorized."

"But you haven't quite decided this is your way, yet. Perhaps the White Current is your way. Stretch out with your feelings and I'll show you what it is, and what it does."

Luke demonstrated the White Current. He disguised his features, and then disappeared entirely. He popped back into existence, looking like himself again, and then made a luminous butterfly appear to land on his hand.

Dije felt Purpose stir inside her. And she tasted the strange emotion of ambition. If she could bring the lost art of illusion back to her people, students would flock to her. Instead of secretly initiating a few highly trusted people in the ways of the Jedi, and hope it spread over generations, she could openly teach the Light, and the White Current, alongside each other. Cloaked in the respect of Fruitioner ways, she might even be able to live openly as a Jedi someday, once she had already become a great teacher.

"Will you teach me the art of illusion?"

"Yes. The Fallanassi still live in secrecy. Tell no one. I can only teach you because you already know about them."

"I understand. Please, link with me and do that again." Link?

They linked minds and Luke demonstrated the White Current again. Dije felt it, a vast sense of motion. It was both like and unlike the Force, in the way that two different frequencies of radio waves had different uses and characteristics.

Dije copied Luke's butterfly illusion. It was incredible to see the glistening creature with its brightly colored wings posed on her hand. It was so beautiful. But Dije wanted above all to know if she could use this power in a quintessentially Sith fashion. The butterfly became a black serpent. It grew in size and coiled around her arm.

Dije watched its slitted eyes gleam like the butterfly's wings. She admired it as it opened its mouth above her hand and stretched its sharp fangs. The art of illusion had also been called the power of fanged serpents, during the Golden Age. Dije forgot to breathe as she gazed at her creation, and smiled.

"Dije!"

She looked over at Luke, and her smile faded. She dismissed her illusion. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

Luke looked like he was warring inside with some decision. "Well. I helped you lose your fear of lightsabers, it's only right you return the favor."

"Oh. Of course. I chose that illusion because it has meaning to my people. I didn't think about what meaning it would have for the Jedi."

"Exar Kun nearly killed me with the power of fanged serpents. He did drive me from my body. I never made the connection between that and the Fallanassi illusions."

"I'm sorry, I won't-"

"No," Luke interrupted. "I won't let fear stop either of us."

He banished emotion in a single breath, and Dije felt him flowing into the White Current. Luke held up a hand and a snake came from it. It had five heads. Luke extended his arm toward a standing stone and the serpents struck at it. Then he dismissed the illusion.

"Never stop learning, never stop growing," Luke murmured, as if to himself. Then he started walking back toward the Temple. Dije fell into step a pace behind him.

His voice was a little shaky as he said, "I'm going to really surprise somebody with that sometime. I'll save it for a special occasion, or a special enemy. It's the last thing anyone would expect from me."

The Neimoidian females locked their hands around each others' necks. Their grips were slippery in the slimy cascade of purple from their eyes, flowing across their green cheeks and down their necks. One of them kicked the other in the stomach. The human male tried to pull them apart, but they ignored him, yammering at each other in their alien language.

Hareng directed one of the three droid-cams being used in this segment of Purple Tears Live to get in close to the females and focus on their jiggling anatomy. The floating camera got too close and one of the females let loose with one hand and smashed it against the bedframe. Scratch one droid-operated holocam.

This was not going as anticipated. The two Neimoidians had already been in a scene together in Slave Girls and had worked well with each other. But it was precisely the unpredictable nature of the primitive emotions of rut that were awakened by the Purple Tears drug that gave these live subcasts such great crossover appeal between the Sex and Violence Network's two primary audiences.

One of the females bit the other on the arm, and alien Neimoidian blood joined the dark purple droplets on the white sheets. The other female let go her throat-hold only to head-butt her opponent.

The male abruptly lost his patience with the girl fight, picked up the downed holocam, and smashed one of the females in the head with it. She dropped like a stone.

The human male pulled up a corner of sheet and wiped the purple chemical off his face, and then settled down on the remaining female.

Hareng did not anticipate the Director would choose to try a threesome again. Hareng directed one of his remaining droid-cams to get a good angle on the couple, finally doing what they were supposed to do, while the other droid-operated holocam did a slow pass of the unmoving form of the losing female. Her skull was caved in. No bacta tank was going to fix this. The Producer was not going to be pleased. Slaves were almost as expensive as droid-cams.

"I can't call them from here. They have strict secrecy rules. But I could take you to Coruscant and call them from some neutral, untraceable place there. I've kept up a program that monitors their ship movements so that I can find them again, because of their open invitation to Leia."

Dije thought for only a few moments. "Alright. Let's go."

"We leave in an hour, on the supply shuttle."

Dije packed her things, which fit in one duffel, and went to Tionne's study to say good-bye. There was no need for words; the duffel bag floating in the corridor behind Dije told Tionne all she needed to know. The two women embraced. Then Dije faced the much harder task of saying farewell to Anakin.

She found him outside, in a tree. Dije set down her duffel and jumped up to his branch, and found a seat and a handhold.

"I'm leaving."

"You haven't gone through the ceremony yet."

"To become a Jedi?" At Anakin's nod, Dije looked off into the variegated greens of the jungle. "I haven't decided to make the final dedication, yet. I'm going to be traveling with Luke for a while."

Anakin snapped off a leaf and tore it slowly apart, pensive but not sad. Anakin clearly thought she was coming back.

Dije did not know how much she should tell him. But the Jedi often said, feel, don't think, so Dije settled for pure emotion. "You're my only friend."

"Tionne's your friend."

"She's my Master."

"Not anymore. Uncle Luke's your Master now."

"You're right. I guess I do have two friends. But I'm leaving both of you behind."

Luke and Dije practiced lightsaber drill in the empty hold of the supply shuttle while the pilot napped in the pilot compartment, all his work done until it was time for the hyperspace translation.

As usual, Dije and Luke conversed while they sparred.

"My people can detect lies as easily as the Jedi can. If I actually serve as your bodyguard, it will be true when I say it. And it gives me a perfect way to explain what I've learned from you. I'll say I was paid in knowledge, and learned the secrets of the Jedi. And it will be true."

"Wait, let me guess: 'from a certain point of view.' " Cut, block, thrust, chop, stab.

"You did say the Star Morning was in the Corporate Sector. People there will recognize me as a Sith from my tattoos. We won't be able to pass as simply Master and apprentice out there."

"Alright," Luke acceded, flipping his saber to his left hand in a reversed grip and trying a knifelike stab, which Dije blocked. "We have until we get to Corporate space to figure out why I'd hire one."

"That's easy," Dije claimed, trying to trip him with a foot hooked behind his knee, which Luke simply raised out of. She continued, "Because you're on vacation and you're there to relax."

Luke decided he felt like winning today. He picked Dije up with the Force and pinned her against the ceiling. "I find combat relaxing."

Dije held out the hand that did not have a lightsaber in it, fingers leveled at Luke, in the classic pose of summoning Force-lighting. "Not for long, o wise Jedi."

Luke let her down. "You know, that's the first time you've done that. Pointed without actually meaning to cast, I mean."

"I'm in control of my power, at last," Dije replied, as they deactivated their lightsabers and clipped them to their belts. "I'm confident in the Force. In the Light."

"Just say the word and we'll turn this trip to Coruscant into a shopping expedition for lightsaber parts instead of a hunt for a suitable two person ship."

"No. I have to know, Luke. I have to meet the Fallanassi. Now that I've tasted the lost art of illusion, I have to see what else they can teach me. I have to know if their path is mine."

"I thought so. Just so you know, the offer is open-ended. If that path turns out to be a dead end, you can always come back to this one. And I intend to teach you a few more things before we reach Corporate space. There are some Jedi already on Coruscant. I'm going to get everybody together for a seminar while we're there."

"Is that a good idea? For everybody to see me, I mean?"

"As far as the rest of the Order is concerned, you're my apprentice, and we're traveling on my business."

"Which is?"

"Mine. That's the great thing about being the head of the Order. I don't have to explain myself to anybody."

Dije blinked. "Power corrupts, Master Unaccountable."

Luke shook his head slightly. "Definitely a Fallanassi."

When they reached Coruscant, Luke got Dije into quarters opposite his in the refurbished Palace, and then set out to find his seminar subject. He did not know who or what he was looking for, only that he was getting a strong prompting from the Force to go northwest and down.

Luke rarely had visions or felt promptings from the Force, and they became rarer the more powerful he became, which seemed contradictory to him. So when he did get one, he latched onto it.

He ended up on a moving public transport car that rode along a fixed route between a glittering modern office building sector and a more rundown residential area. The transport was stuffed with clerks going home.

Luke spotted a familiar face. Someone he'd served with? No, but definitely ex-military. The human man no longer wore a uniform or a military haircut, but he way he stood holding the hand-strap as the transport moved just said military to Luke.

The man sensed himself being watched, and turned toward Luke, who had not bothered to disguise himself, but was simply maintaining a don't-notice-me attitude that kept casual observers from recognizing him as a famous person riding the monorail.

The man's eyes lit with recognition, and then puzzlement.

Abruptly Luke knew who he was, in the peculiar way he remembered everyone whose minds he had ever mucked around in. Tomathy Manes had been a Senior Specialist in a listening post on Utharis during the Yevetha War.

So, Luke realized. This is going to be the memory seminar. Dije will have a fit.

Luke left his seat and moved up to Tomathy, smiling in what he hoped was a harmless looking manner. "Hi, Tomathy. I know you don't remember me, unless I seriously bungled. But we met on Utharis."

Tomathy was staring at him. "You can't be."

"Sorry. I know I was probably the only excitement you guys had in that post for months, and I really hated to have to take it away from you, but I was on a secret mission."

"You can't be," Tomathy repeated. "What would he be doing on the subway?"

"Looking for you," Luke said. It was true—from a certain point of view. "I'd like to make it up to you. I'm on Coruscant to teach a seminar in memory techniques. If you wouldn't mind letting a few advanced students see for themselves how thoroughly you've forgotten, I can promise this time it'll be a memorable experience. Including meeting a few of my other friends. After the class we're going to a party with Lando at Top of the World." Lando had a business interest in that very exclusive nightclub. "What do you say? You free tonight?"

"Who put you up to this? Rorin? Wakedu? That's a great likeness, by the way. Are you a professional impersonator?"

Luke grinned. He knew how to convince Tomathy he was the real Luke Skywalker. "If you decide to participate, come to the Alba conference room in Imperial Palace in three standard timeparts. I'll leave word at the door to let you in. Oh, this is my stop."

Luke gestured and the door slid open while the train was in motion. He backflipped out the door into thin air, nothing below him but aircar traffic and a very long fall.

Tomathy rushed to the window to watch the lunatic disappear into the perpetual night of the lower levels before going splat on whatever was at the bottom, but he instead he saw the man drifting gently downward as if he weighed nothing: sky-walking.

Luke used the Force to angle himself toward a roofless airspeeder passing below him, and dropped neatly into the passenger seat.

"Pay no attention to the Jedi who fell from the sky," Luke said, with a little wave.

Dije did not in fact throw a fit about the memory seminar. She merely asked if all of the subjects were volunteers. "Real volunteers, not mentally influenced," as she put it. They were, so there was no problem.

There were three ways to erase someone's memory. If the memory was caught soon enough, and it was a short enough memory, a Force-user could do what Luke had done to Tomathy: prevent the short term memory from being encoded in long term memory, and effectively erase it as if it had never been. It was non-damaging, and totally undetectable, as the students saw when they tried to find any evidence of tampering in Tomathy.

The other non-damaging way was a memory cap. That left the memories intact but prevented access to them. Luke had his students practice creating, detecting, and popping memory caps in the volunteers.

Someone asked the inevitable question, "What's the third way?"

"The third way is to burn out long term memories permanently by destroying neural pathways. It's destructive, and, frankly, violent. I'm not going to demonstrate that, it would harm the subject." Luke glanced at Dije, who was sitting at the back of the room, and saw reluctant approval in her eyes. He knew it was going to disappear after he said his next bit. "It's what Kyp Durron did to Qwi Xux. And while that was a tragedy for her, preventing the construction of more planet-killing superweapons is more than enough justification for harming one person. There may be a circumstance in the future in which any of you might make the same decision. So although we can't practice it here, I am going to tell you how to do it. It's as simple as locating the memories you're after, just like you do for a memory cap. And then ripping them away. Of course, there's an obvious fourth way to get rid of someone's memories, and that is to kill him. Killing people for what they know if more the style of Black Sun than the Jedi Order, but it's possible any of you might find yourselves in a circumstance in which that would be the appropriate action. Remember: let the Force guide your actions. And you will know what is right. That's all."

To Luke's surprise, Dije did not say anything to him about the final part of his lecture. Perhaps she was learning. Or maybe she was saving something really biting to spring on him during their next sparring match.

As they left Imperial Palace for the Top of the World, Tomathy was also silent. He still looked a little nervous, despite having come through the class unscathed, as if he were still unsure this was all real. He had not felt anything, after all. All these people could still be actors putting something over on him. He kept glancing at wall sconces in the corridor of the Palace, and the accoutrements of the air taxi, as if looking for hidden cameras.

But at nightclub Top of the World, it became obvious that Tomathy had either fallen in with a cast of celebrity clones, grown for some nefarious purpose involving publicity for the nightclub, or he was really at a party with Luke Skywalker, Han and Leia Solo, Lando Calrissian, and a very oddly mixed group of Jedi, smugglers, investors, con men, politicians, sabacc players, pilots, mining industry execs, the genteelly poor aristocracy of lost Alderaan and the idle rich who loved them: Luke's, Leia's, Han's, and Lando's friends.

Tomathy maneuvered himself into a conversation circle with some of the military folk and was soon having himself a grand old time.

Across the room, Dije Kun, attired in Jedi robes and wishing for something a little more flattering, sought out the tall dark and handsome fellow in the dashing red half-cape.

"Hell-o, what have we here?" Lando kissed her hand.

"Dije. And of course everyone here knows who you are."

"Ah, fame. But how fame and fortune are outshone by a lady's beauty. Please, allow me." Lando pulled out a seat for her, and helped her arrange her robes as if they were the heavily embellished shimmersilks of the noble ladies. In the process, he managed to touch Dije's leg, and she felt a thrill that had nothing to do with the Force.

He likes me, Dije thought. And he's sure good looking. Why not? This is supposed to be a party (in her mind, Dije used the word neon, as if she were with a group of young Antithesis on Sith-ta). If I'm going to go off and become a Fallanassi nun I might as well have some fun first.

They spoke of their mutual acquaintances for bit.

"And what do you do, now? Are you out of the scoundrel business too?"

"I'm a major investor in the Kessel spice mine."

"Got any?"

"Any what?"

"Spice. I'll trade." Dije jumped into his lap. "What do you like?"

Lando looked very startled, and looked away from her to someone standing behind her as if for an explanation.

Dije turned her head and saw Luke flash the number 16 at Lando with his fingers.

Lando gently set her back on her feet. "Ah, you're a little young for me, honey."

"I thought you were flirting with me before."

Luke said, "He flirts with all the ladies. But he won't cross his girlfriend Mara. She used to be the Emperor's Hand."

"Oh. Oh well. We would've had fun." Dije went off in search of someone less influenced by Luke's uptightness. Maybe she'd try that Tomathy fellow Luke brought to the seminar. He seemed absolutely entranced with the idea of being friends with Jedi, Dije bet he wouldn't turn down a chance to play around with one. Dije hadn't gotten any the whole time she'd been at the Academy.

She glided in next to Tomathy, glued herself to his side and whispered in his ear, "Have you ever had telepathic sex?"

A couple of hours later, Lando and company ended up downstairs at the sabacc tables.

"Join the game, Dije," Lando invited.

"Is it allowed? I mean, being what I am."

"Hey, we're letting Luke play. Why not?"

Dije squeezed in at the table next to Tomathy. Before she could ask what she could bet, a waiter set down a comped stake in front of her, and asked what she would like to drink.

Lando explained, "The house is comping our whole group, because of those paparazzi over there."

They played a few hands of the card game. Each time, they played a different variation: Shronk, Hi-Lo, Cloud City Casino Rules, and then in the fourth round the dealer announced Force sabacc. In that version of the game, each numbered or regular face card of a suit belonged to either the dark or light side, according to the suit: sabers and flasks light, coins and staves dark. And the special cards each had their own meaning, and their own unique assignment to either light or dark. Force sabacc was very close to the original use of sabacc cards, which was for fortune telling. Except that in the game, the players could combine with each other to bring either one side or the other to a collective victory, so that the smartest move wasn't having the best hand, but the best hand on the winning side.

Dije examined her hand. If this were a fortune telling array instead of a casino game, the first card dealt to her would represent herself. Her first card was the Queen of Air and Darkness. Dije squirmed. Her entire hand was of the dark side, and it was an easy decision to place the Queen card into the stasis field, to keep it from shifting to another card.

All the players but Luke made their decisions quickly. He was staring at his cards in consternation. Han reached around Leia and nudged Luke in the ribs, as if to make sure he was awake.

Dije realized he must be trying to decide between playing to win and playing to conform to his image of himself; he must have been dealt a mostly dark hand. Dije suppressed a smile, leaned slightly forward across the sabacc table, and stage-whispered:

"Join the dark side, Luke."

Luke looked up from his cards and fixed her with his intense gaze.

Lando said, "This game just became too high- stakes even for me."

In a standard sabacc deck there was a special card that was usually represented as a robed Jedi with a lightsaber, and that card was called Moderation. There was also a card depicted as a tattooed Sith Lord of the Golden Age, wearing the jeweled chains and rich cloth of that era, before the Sith started wearing commando black. That card was called, logically enough, the Dark Lord.

Luke placed the Dark Lord into the stasis field.

Tension filled the table. No one said a word the rest of the game. This had been a lighthearted gathering, but now everyone acted as if the game mattered in a way that even games where whole planets were won and lost did not.

Gradually, over the course of the round, the various players lined up on the side of either the light or the dark. The sides were nearly evenly split going into the last phase of the game. Then Dije removed her card from the stasis field and it turned to Moderation before she had it safely concealed in her hand again. She paused, considered the high value of the card, and placed Moderation back in the stasis field.

The game was over, everyone turned over their cards and the dealer counted up the totals. The dealer announced, "Light wins. Highest hand: the lady in brown."

"You betrayed me!" Luke shrilled. Along with everyone else, he got up from the sabacc table. They all began herding toward the exit. He hung back and fell into step with Dije. His voice was steady now as he said, "Of course you did. You're a Sith."

"Is that what you see? Because what I see is, if you join the dark side, you'll be left all alone, with a losing hand."

"I'm going to get you for that."

"Revenge? Is that really appropriate for a Jedi? I thought you left all your dark cards on the table. Got one up your sleeve? No? How about here?"

"Hey!"

She was tickling!

"How attached are you to that hand?"

Dije froze for a second. Was he playing Threat and Counterthreat? No, he was making a pun. "You don't scare me, Jedi."

Luke grinned. "Then my work here is done."

Ongreya found the couple in the park. Behind them roared a waterfall, sending up cool mist, white noise, and rainbows into the pink air. Trees bloomed yellow above the clipped red grass, and children of a hundred species laughed and played with aerial disks.

Ongreya walked up to them as they strolled along the trail. "I'm Ongreya the Psy Healer. Your pain called out to me across the stars. I can help you."

"We don't need any help, lady," said the male.

But the female said, "Hey, I watch your show! This is great! Oh, wait, no! No! You bring out the dirt! It's fun to watch but I don't want be in the show!"

"I help people face the uncomfortable truths that would destroy their lives with secrecy and poisonous distrust."

"No! Not that!"

Then the male said, "Hey, wait, Juluka, if you've got a secret like that I deserve to know what it is. We're getting married!"

Ongreya exerted her power on the female, but left the male's mind alone; he was going to co-operate without any prompting.

The female said, "But I don't—Well, of course I want to share everything with you, Rey. And of course I want Ongreya to help us. I'm a big fan."

Ongreya asked, "What is the truth you have been afraid of telling?"

"I had a sex change. I used to be a man."

"What?" cried her fiancée. "You told me you wanted children!"

"We can have children! We can have our DNA combined and use a donor ova shell. They do it all the time!"

"That's it! It's over!" The male started to walk away.

Ongreya exerted her power on him. "We have not yet healed this relationship."

The male came back. Ongreya got them seated on a park bench, and the show went on.

Dije leaned out over the railing and looked down at the view of the Coruscant sunrise. They were at a used starship lot.

The salesman was a Trandoshan, and clearly not used to the cityscape. What burning economic need had driven him to take this job was not apparent, but it was clear he did not belong on a landing platform.

"Come away from there, miss. It's a long way down," the salesman said as he stood a good ten meters back from the edge.

"It's an even longer way down from a starship that won't fly," Dije said. "If I'm going to spend my sabacc winnings on a spacecraft, it's going to be one that passes inspection by my friend there."

"Ships have engines, and decks. Isn't it scary to look down like that?"

"Scary? This? You haven't seen scary til you've seen Luke Skywalker in a murderous rage."

"Murderous is an exaggeration," called Luke as he scooted out from under the ship. "Leia was the one trying to kill you."

"It sounds more dignified than hissy fit."

Luke laughed. "True. This one will do. It's not fast, and it's not armed, but at least it's not a Verpine Adventurer."

As Dije found out once they were in space, the reason the ship looked a little bigger than some of the cheapest used ships on the lot was because it had two private cabins on board. Well, she had let Luke pick the ship, she should have guessed that extra fuel tankerage would not be his biggest priority. In fact, the ship was not fast, just as Luke had said, and it did not have a great range either. They ended up having to make numerous small hops to get all the way to Corporate space.

On their journey, Luke continued to teach her as much as he knew of the art of illusion, and to spar with her and debate philosophy, and to refine her skills with the Force. When they reached Star Morning, the plan was for Luke to drop her off, go back to Coruscant and sell the ship for her and deposit her money in an account for her, and then go back to Yavin in the supply shuttle. That was plan A, anyway. Plan B was for them both to go back, if the meeting with the Fallanassi did not go well. But the Fallanassi were expecting her, so Dije did not anticipate a problem connecting with them. There was always the possibility that on meeting her, they wouldn't like her, or that she wouldn't like them.

On most of their stops they just bought fuel and food and other necessities and went back into space without leaving the spaceport or space station, but when they docked at the Corporate world of Gelpion, they found themselves stranded by the unavailability of fuel.

Luke asked a port official, "What is it, a dockworkers' strike?"

The official laughed. "No, no, we don't allow that here. It's a security measure. They're hunting for a fugitive, and no ship is to be refueled until he's captured, so he can't get offworld." The official showed them a flimsi printout of a flatpic, probably from someone's official ID photo. "If you see this man, report him immediately. We're very close to catching him. It shouldn't take long. In the meantime, all the inconvenienced crews are invited to enjoy the hospitality of Gelpion."

"Free?" Dije asked.

"Transportation to the hotel of your choice is available free."

"The hotel shuttle is always free," Dije pointed out. "Never mind. We'll stay on our ship, thanks."

"Wait," Luke said. "I think I'm ready for a break from your cooking."

"It's better than yours."

He asked the port official, "Where's a good restaurant?"

"Rolthy's is a decent midprice place. If you want really good, there's Joash. Just take the Drop Inn shuttle. One leaves the Customs-cleared area every hour. You'll have to leave that," the official said, pointing at Luke's side. "No weapons past Customs."

"That's OK, he's got a bodyguard," Dije said. "Who doesn't need any."

When the port official left, Luke said, "I could get this past Customs. I've done it before."

"Why risk it? If we're going to pull off this bodyguard routine I'll have to actually act as your bodyguard. That means if someone tries to get you I'm stepping in front. And as much progress as I've made, I'd still rather not have to deal with that and the sound of a lightsaber igniting at my back at the same time. It would be distracting."

"I really don't like that idea, Dije."

"Too bad. We're only a couple of jumps away from my homeworld. I could be recognized. Not just recognized as a Sith, but recognized by name by other Sith. I have to have an excuse to be hanging around with a Jedi Master."

So the two of them went to Joash, which was tastefully furnished with ferns and exotic flowers, musicians in lighted alcoves, and a suspicious security man at the door. Luke wished he and Dije had simply relied on illusion to disguise them instead of showing up in his Jedi robes trailed a half-step behind his right shoulder by a black-suited Sith.

"Aren't you the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker?"

"Yes, I am."

"That is a Dark Lady of the Sith."

"Why shouldn't I hire the best?"

"Why would one of them work for you?"

"Our contract is our business. As long as anybody here has one, I need one too. And everybody who's anybody has a Sith bodyguard."

"Well, that's true," said the bouncer. "Alright, go on in." He gave Dije a look meant to intimidate, as if to say he'd be keeping an eye on her.

Dije flashed him a sparkling smile that emphasized her cheek tattoos. She refrained from sticking out her tongue.

Inside, there were in fact other Sith bodyguards. Some of them were eating at the table with their employers. One was standing behind his client, back to back with his chair, which Dije thought was silly. Sith didn't need to be looking directly at trouble to spot it. There were a few others just standing around menacingly near the windows.

Dije and Luke followed the fashion of the less paranoid and ate together. The food was exquisitely presented, unusual, and not really all that tasty. So much for gourmet cuisine on Gelpion.

They were just starting on dessert when the window crashed in. A humanoid swung in on a rope, brandishing a laser welder. He fired a burst at the ceiling to prove the safety mechanisms had been removed, and the welder could be used as a weapon.

"Everybody down!"

There was some shrieking and ducking, but all the Sith stood up.

Luke stood up too, hand automatically going for his lightsaber, but it wasn't there.

"You!" the party crasher pointed to a woman in a frothy gown. "You're Tira the heiress. You have a private yacht. You're my ticket off this ball of rock! Come with me."

Tira had a Sith bodyguard. The man used the Force to yank the laser welder away from the fugitive, but the criminal pulled another one and shot the bodyguard. The laser beam went straight through him and out the other side. It lanced through an ice sculpture with a hissing sound and bored right at Dije! Dije calmly extended her palm.

Luke had to restrain himself from pushing her aside. He did not have his lightsaber and could not deflect the beam. Whatever Dije was planning, he had to let her do it.

Dije absorbed the red laser bolt. Then she jerked the second welder away from the criminal, and reached out with the Force for the rope still clutched in the fugitive's off hand, and wrapped it around him. She gestured, and he flopped to the ground, and she neatly tied his hands behind his back.

"I think this is the man the port official was after," Dije said, as if commenting on the weather.

"Good. Looks like they'll be refueling us soon, then."

Luke sat back down, but did not bother to pretend to be interested in his pastry. He noticed the Sith noticing Dije. Most of them nodded at her in respect. Waiters scurried to the side of the downed bodyguard, and medical help was summoned.

Luke and Dije got back to their ship without further incident. The first thing Luke did was reattach his lightsaber to his belt. "You don't know how hard it was just standing there doing nothing," he commented.

"Oh, I do know," Dije said. "Your frustration was rising off you like heat shimmer off pavement. Most of the time you're really heavily shielded, but even you give off waste energy. Especially when you call on the Force really strongly and don't use it."

"That was a neat trick, by the way," Luke said. "I've only ever heard of one other person who could eat blaster bolts for dessert. How is it done?"

They passed the time until the ship was refueled practicing with the Force and the White Current.

A few days later they landed on the planet where Star Morning, a liner registered to the Kell Plath Corporation, was currently hangared. Dije left behind both her Jedi robes and her Sith attire, instead wearing her neon green Bright dungarees, barely held up with the pink scarf used as a sash, and the dark brown undershirt of the Jedi uniform.

They went to the place where Wialu told Luke to meet them. No one appeared to be there.

Dije flowed into the White Current and felt the eddies of the presence of beings. She adjusted her sight and the Circle appeared. Wialu, white-haired and wearing a flowing blue and green gown, stepped forward and regarded Dije carefully.

"I see you have learned much already," Wialu said. "Are you prepared to dedicate yourself to Fala?"

"I am," Dije replied.

"Then come."

The Fallanassi moved off without speaking to Luke. Dije went with them.

End of The Lost Art. Story continues in Star Morning.


	4. Chapter 4

Star Morning

Subcasters series. After The Lost Art

Women and girls in froth and frills lined the corridor, each holding a glass with a flickering candle inside. The ship's lights were off, and the warm browns of the corridor walls almost looked like the inside of a rammed earth shelter. Designs in blue and amber were unreadable in the wavering light and shadow.

The Fallanassi chanted: a long slow sonorous chant of nonsense syllables. Wialu led her to an ornate door. It looked like carved marble, but how could such a thing be part of a space ship? It must be a replica, Dije decided.

Wialu said, "Beauty is an aspect of the Dreaming Goddess. By embodying Beauty, we embody the Dream. We make ourselves conduits for her love."

Wialu opened the door and Dije stepped through it. Two young women waited on either side of the door. Each took one of Dije's arms and guided her as the door closed. It was totally dark, cave-dark, and Dije became frightened as the two women undressed her.

Dije thought, What have I gotten myself into? But they couldn't mean me any harm, the Fallanassi are pacifists.

She was led to another door, and her hand was placed on a metal ring. Dije pulled and the door opened on light and moisture. The months in the Yavin jungle had not dulled Dije's ability to smell water, and she smelled it before her mind made sense of what she saw.

The room contained a vast white marble pool filled with still blue water. Flower petals floated on the glassy surface. The two guides led Dije forward and led her into the pool. They walked down the steps with her in their diaphanous white gowns.

They bathed her. At one point they gently but firmly pushed her under the water, and Dije came up looking at the ceiling, which was painted to resemble a planetary daylight sky. Star Morning was a palace in space. Dije had imagined utilitarian cabins, ascetic spaces perhaps enlivened with the occasional illusion, and this incredible water profligacy astounded her.

The two Fallanassi ritually cleansed every inch of the new initiate. Then they brought her out of the pool and dried her with big fluffy white towels. They took her hands in theirs and brought her back to the door, which now opened on multicolored fairy lights instead of primal darkness. Dije first noticed the will-o-wisps dancing in the air, and recognized them as forms of the same illusion with which Luke had lighted the way to the stone grove on the day Dije found out the art of illusion was not lost. Then Dije looked around and realized the mysterious room of darkness was a prosaic locker room for the pool. Except there were no locks on anything.

Dije was led by the hands back into the corridor and to a large room with chairs, stacks of organizer boxes, and racks of clothes. Her two guides dyed her hair in unnatural rainbow hues; when she saw it in the mirror Dije could not help but smile. Any Bright youth would sting with jealousy to see her.

They braided her hair in multiple braids, plaited with multicolored silk ribbons and decorated with occasional beads of crystal or gold. They shaped and painted her fingernails peach with silver traceries, and her toenails transparent purple with laser glitter.

They made up her face — covered her tattoos. Dije looked at herself in the mirror and was shocked to see a child looking back at her. Her tattoos were gone! Dije knew they were only covered with foundation and powder, not even a true glamour of White Current illusion. But she had not seen herself without her marks of adulthood since she left her home planet. She felt suddenly far more naked than before. Like part of her self had been stripped away.

Dije hummed a calming song to deal with the sudden fear. As if it were a signal, the two guides took Dije's arms again and stood her up, and led her to the clothes. They pulled out a glittering beaded dress. It was pale green, spangled with shiny apple green sequins. They dressed Dije in it, and she saw that it was fitted to the waist in satin, and then it flared over her legs in many layers of silken gauze. It fastened in the back in a way that made it impossible for someone to get in or out of it by herself. It was quite the most impractical garment she had ever seen outside of a holodrama.

Dije thought, That would make an attractive target during a sneak-and-peak. Oh no, I've become Luke: seeing everything through the lens of combat.

They put jewelry and beaded slippers on her, and led her to a gilt-edged mirror. She caught her breath when she saw herself. She did look very fine indeed.

Then they led her to another room, where all the women and girls of the ship had gathered with many bowls of fruits and platters of breads and vegetables and some sculptural things that Dije could not quite tell if they were for eating or looking. It's an initiation feast, she realized.

Wialu announced, "Welcome to the novice Dije Kun. Blessings of Fala upon her."

"Blessings of Fala," the congregation replied. Then the celebration began.

Luke came out of hyperspace unexpectedly. An interdictor cruiser! But it wasn't painted Imperial white. It was black like space, except for a giant white skull painted across its bow.

Pirates.

The comm crackled. "Ship, stand to and prepare to be boarded."

Luke laughed out loud. At last, a problem he could solve by shooting at it. Dije's ship was unarmed, and he could wish he was in his X wing right then, but the pirates were going to get a surprise.

He let the pirate pinnace latch on. Only four pirates, not even in armor. With fletchette guns; antipersonnel weapons that would not damage the ship. Well, that was slightly harder to deal with than blaster bolts, since fletchette cartridges could expand, but that only meant he had to disarm them before they could fire, instead of deflecting bolts with his lightsaber.

It was not particularly hard. He simply grabbed all four guns at once, and pulled them away from the pirates with the Force. One of them drew a vibroblade. Luke ignited his lightsaber. Snap-hiss! The glowing green blade made it clear the pirates had made a terrible mistake.

"Want to surrender now?" Luke asked. "Or do I get to kill some of you first?"

It was perhaps the shortest boarding battle in history.

These pirates were cowards, bullies, only picking on small unarmed vessels. Luke got the pinnace and Dije's ship into the docking bay, herded the pirates into their own holding cells, brought the interdictor to Coruscant and sold it, along with the pinnace, and Dije's ship, and deposited the money to Dije's sabacc winnings account. The pirates, he left in the hands of the Coruscanti authorities. A job well done. And such a relief, to have no qualms about how much violence he used. The pirates didn't even get a scratch, but if they had died Luke would have no regrets.

On the way back to Yavin, he wondered if he would ever hear from Dije again. She might not care that she was rich now; the Fallanassi were certainly much richer. A thousand years ago their ancestors had made some careful and well managed investments.

He wondered if she had found her path, and if she was happy. And if he would ever find out, one way or the other.

Dije's life was strictly and rigidly structured, with a schedule of prayers to go to when called by the ship's intercom. She did work, or art—she was encouraged to reach a state of flow. Dije was not sure if there was any purpose to the things she made other than a meditative practice. Generations of Fallanassi had decorated all the ship's interior surfaces. Even the engines in the engine room were covered with intricate paintings.

The engine sounded slightly sputtery to Dije. She reached for it in the Force and made a minute adjustment. It evened out nicely.

But her assigned mentor, Ize, said, "Don't do that. It disrupts the harmony of the White Current."

"Fixing things?"

"Using the Force. It is not our way. You must only commune with the White Current."

Dije chafed. But she didn't feel comfortable enough with the Fallanassi to argue with them the way she did with Luke. She had touched his mind the day they met, and she trusted him.

"Come away now. It is fifth daypart, time for instruction." Dije attended class with the ship's children, a group of mixed age, but all human females. There were exercises in the art of illusion, which Dije threw herself into with a gusto that was almost desperation. There were also classes in philosophy and history, and the ancient literature of the Fallanassi, which was mostly written in Ancient Sith, so Dije was able to keep up with the other students. There were also classes in mathematics and the arts and sciences. Dije hardly ever had any idle time, but she was not allowed to do anything real, like pilot the ship or repair the engine.

In fact, she was not allowed onto the bridge at all. There were places in the computer she was not allowed to look, a whole level of the ship she was not even allowed to ask about, and more secrets around every corner. Despite the prohibition on using the Force, Dije could still passively receive impressions of the emotions of others, and although full truth sensing mode would require calling the Force to her, Dije could still tell the Fallanassi were hiding something. Something big.

Dije was allowed to ask questions but not to question. "What am I supposed to be doing in seventeenth daypart, and where?" was acceptable, but "Why does the teacher tell the children that males are inherently violent?" was not.

At the end of the day, in the privacy of her room, Dije stepped around the piles of the burdensome 'things' everyone kept dropping off for her, and muttered, "It's a good thing these people are pacifists or they'd be scary."

Fiolla understood why the male victims wouldn't come forward, but where were all the female victims disappearing to?

She was sure they weren't ending up in the slave trade. She had plenty of evidence on Sekin the Hutt's slave operations. That was how she had found the link between the slave trade and the Sex and Violence Network in the first place. Fiolla's interest was in busting slavery rings. She usually didn't bother with mere pornographers.

In fact, the Corporate Sector had state-sponsored pornography, which used paid actors and actresses, not slaves or kidnapping victims. The CSA would never drive such a huge market underground when it could exploit it instead. The vast majority of porn was perfectly legal, and available on the open market. Subcasters occupied niche markets that were either too small for the CSA to bother with, or, in the case of the Sex and Violence Network, engaged in activities that even the CSA, which had been known to strip-mine whole planets to make weapons to sell to both sides in someone else's war, found to be morally repulsive.

Hart-and-Parn Gorra-Fiolla of Lorrd was no longer an auditor-at-large, but was Viceprex of Auditing. She had considerable power, and had been able to devote a large number of auditors to this project. But she could not change the law. Not yet. She was still not on the Board of Directors, although she'd been trying to claw her way onto it for decades.

Perhaps this was precisely the leverage she needed to get herself appointed to the Board. Who could object to her goal of breaking an operation involved in slaving, kidnapping, illegal drugs, and numerous other felonies, and doing it all on holo, effectively spitting in the faces of the whole Corporate Sector Authority? Fiolla had to be careful that someone else on the Board didn't simply pluck her idea of changing the definitions in the sex crime laws, though. She had to be the one to do that, or there would be no need for her to be on the Board to shut down the SVN.

Dije finally had an answer to at least one 'why' question, about the many confusing things the Fallanassi did. That was, she could not contact anyone by holocomm from the ship because the Fallanassi's enemies could track them by their holocomm billing records. But that begged the question: who were the Fallanassi's enemies?

Dije found she could not even ask out loud, not even of Ize. What was wrong with her? She could argue with Luke— nettle him about moral issues while sparring with lightsabers, in fact. Why couldn't she even say good morning to Wialu? 'Unapproachable' shouldn't mean that much to someone with the courage Dije knew she owned. But that courage was the kind that faced fire, and it simply did not carry over to this situation; Dije did not know why.

She did know why she felt pretty miserable, despite all she was learning, though. She craved the Light like a drug. But she was forbidden even to meditate on it in her room, without even using the Force to do anything. She had spent a year of her life perfecting her ability to use the Light and now they made her feel guilty for wanting to.

And nobody seemed to like her much. On Sith-ta, giving people presents was a sign of friendship, but it didn't seem to work that way here. When she had first arrived, nearly everyone onboard came by with gifts, and Dije was delighted, and invited them to stay and talk, but nobody did. As the months went by, Dije realized that she had simply been the object of charity, or perhaps a dumping ground for unwanted art projects.

There were an awful lot of arts and crafts on Star Morning, accidental byproducts of meditative exercises designed to induce flow. Dije had learned to slip into the White Current that way as well, and now had a closetful of ribbon-embroidered nightgowns to show for it. Rather more than she needed, or even wanted.

Ize told her, "We're still waiting for Leia to come to us. We're expecting her any year now."

This was a subject Dije could discuss, and hold opinions on, without stepping over whatever odd boundaries the Fallanassi had placed on their followers' thoughts. It was such a relief to be able to hold a real, intelligent conversation about something.

"You think Leia is a pacifist? She was one of the major leaders of the Rebel Alliance."

"She is Alderaanian."

"Yeah, and I'm a Sith, so?"

"Yes. You are, and I have seen how you struggle against your nature to accept the discipline of a life of devotion. Leia too must struggle against her nature, to accept the warlike ways of the Rebellion and the New Republic."

"I don't think so. She was adopted, you know."

"What?"

"She's not Alderaanian by birth. You knew that, surely. You knew she's Luke's sister."

"Oh. Oh, I see. I see. Thank you for realigning my sight. I see the ways of Alderaan must have been counter to her nature, and the Rebellion her embrace of self. I see now. This is why she never even wrote to us, after we extended an invitation to her through Luke."

"Or maybe she's just busy being the head of state. Not everything is about genetics, you know."

"Much is. The Dream is realized through physical forms, and the forms of living beings are realized through the genetic code. Though all the world be illusion, still the illusion is beloved of the Dreaming Goddess. Everything is made for a reason, from the smallest fir needle to the space whales of Kamino."

"Speaking of genetics, um, I've been wondering. With all the Fallanassi being women, how do you, you know? Have children?"

"Some choose to take lovers in various ports. Some design their children carefully, charting various desired traits and assembling them in the ship's biolab. Some choose to bear their children in their bodies, and others choose the cyowomb."

"How do you design children?"

"I will show you the program, if you like. It is fairly simple, easily downloaded to a handcomp. Many of the Fallanassi spend years carrying around their plans, revising and refining their choices, as one would a great novel. One starts by charting her own DNA."

"Could I do that? Chart myself?"

"Of course. I will show you during free hour."

"Thank you."

"Oneself is the base material, as if beginning an artwork by being dealt the medium, paint, clay, stone, glass, metal, fiber, gravity, light. Some choices are easy: a daughter, healthy. Some are purely aesthetic: hair, eyes, height, build. Perhaps you would choose a great singing voice."

"Maybe." Dije did not ask what Ize would choose. She was her assigned mentor, but Dije was not really close to her. She only felt really close to the ship's cat. Everyone on board had known each other all their lives, except Akanah, and Akanah wanted nothing to do with Luke's apprentice. And just like at the Jedi Academy, Dije was too old for the children and too young for the adults to be friends with. And here there was no Anakin.

"Other things are less easily quantified. Is it possible to design serenity? A selfless submergence in the White Current? A personality that would thrive in the service of the Goddess, using illusion to reveal truth, or to protect the innocent, never as a means of dishonesty for mere personal gain? Once we thought we had, but then there was Akanah: product of a thousand years of the breeder's art, supplemented by the latest in modern biodesign. But she was raised apart from us, in her mother's heresy, and though she has made great progress, she came to us a selfish creature who manipulated men simply because she wanted to, neither in the service of the Goddess nor in good works. I am surprised that her example of the ways of the Fallanassi inspired one such wronged man to bring us you. You seem to desire to serve others beyond all else."

"I do."

"You chafe at the constant prayers, I know."

"I thought I was being patient."

"You are, dear. You have the patience of a—" Ize broke off, looking embarrassed.

"What? Jedi?"

"Perhaps. But what you truly desire is to help people, is it not?"

"Yes."

"I will speak to Wialu. This ship is more than a convent, whatever it may seem. I think you would blossom in your submergence in the flow were you allowed to aid in our good works. This requires Wialu's permission, though, since it means revealing the identities of those we help."

"Thank you, I'd love to help any way I could." Dije wondered if they did not trust her because she was an outsider, or because they perceived her as a child.

Again, she wondered what was wrong with her, that she had to have Ize intercede with Wialu; the Fallanassi were hierarchical, but it was not as if she had been instructed not to talk to the elders. Dije had never thought of herself as shy.

She decided it must just be the oppressive weight of all that ritual. Sometimes she felt like she was in prison. They told her when to eat, when to sleep, when to pray, when to go to the bathroom, when to be creative and make art, even when to feel pretty. And everything had levels and tests. She had to learn to recite long-winded histories of various of the Circle's adventures before she was even allowed to learn to make a star-crown braid, let along the advanced White Current techniques she longed for. Dije had come to realize that the Fallanassi were really not interested in helping her develop her full potential—like Luke was. Or in aiding her in finding her path—like Luke was.

She had often heard people say how wonderful it was to feel like a part of something greater than oneself. Dije thought it felt frustrating. She had worked so hard to learn to use the Light; turning away from it now made no sense.

From the strangled soup of emotion came one clear thought: I want off this ship. Then she told herself firmly, Not before I learn to make illusions that are more than illusion. I'm doing this for my people.

Kerruke set down her drink and leaned slightly forward. "I'm interested in joining the Smuggler's Alliance."

"You're not a smuggler," Karrde replied. "You're a pirate."

"Hardly. I'm not even a privateer. I've never taken a contract for six creds and found a day. I'm a mercenary. Mostly I move passengers rather than cargo. I've taken contracts from all kinds of oddballs. Debt collectors, people running from debt collectors. Spies, assassins, bounty hunters, journalists, ex-wives. Even a party of rich execs on safari, once. Still, most of what Sith Raider does can be classified as smuggling. We don't move slaves. My Lady forbids it."

"I thought you were the Captain-owner of Sith Raider."

"I am. My Lady is currently pursuing her own interests. But I stand ready to serve her again whenever she needs me."

"And what interests are those, if I may ask?"

"I hear through the Sith gossip network that she's the personal bodyguard of Luke Skywalker."

"You're kidding."

"Why not? He has been targeted for assassination, you know. Speaking of which, is Mara Jade onboard? I'd love to meet her."

"Sorry. At the moment she's gallivanting around the cosmos with her boyfriend Lando."

"Ah. Another time, perhaps. That is, if I'm welcome to return?"

"I'll contact you."

The lab: a freezer full of samples. Each had a blue label and a white label. The blue labels were men's names, or alphanumeric codes. The ones with blue names tended to have names on the white labels too; the samples of lovers, carefully preserved by those who loved them, or who at least thought them suitable for reproduction. The code labels tended to have "OPEN" in the white label, meaning it was for use by all. Dije's attention was arrested by one marked "LUKE SKYWALKER/ AKANAH."

"My, my. Luke didn't say he knew her that well. I thought the man was a monk."

"Perhaps he became one after being deceived and used by Akanah. I'm certain he doesn't know she has this. With his obsession with family, he'd be obnoxiously persistent about its status if he knew it was here. The fact that the only time he's ever contacted us was to send us you proves he didn't know Akanah took it. Which is possible to do with Fallanassi powers of illusion, but it's a perversion of their purpose. Although Fala takes only priestesses, we acknowledge the other gods and goddesses, including those to whom procreation is sacrosanct."

Dije smiled. "That's one way to put it. Remember, I know followers of the other gods, back on Sith-ta. I've been to a Fruitioner fertility festival out in the sacred farmland."

"Really? We've been a ship clan for a thousand years. Agricultural rites are a little abstract to us."

"Basically they have fun with whoever happens to come along." Dije's thoughts strayed suddenly from the Fruitioners to Kyp. He had been awkward around her after he found out she wasn't a Force vision, but she loved to replay their first meeting in her mind again and again.

A human female opened the door and peered out suspiciously. "You're not the delivery man."

"I'm Ongreya the Psy Healer. Your pain called out to me across the stars. I can help you."

"Another damn social worker. I'm not leaving, you hear me? I happen to like it in here. And you can't make me. I make enough money on the Hobgoblin to pay my rent and buy the stuff I want, and it's nobody's business if I never go out."

Ongreya extended her power. "You are a wounded soul in need of healing. When did you become so afraid?"

The woman stepped back a pace, the wrinkles of suspicion erased from around her eyes. "The war. The one before the last one."

"You want to invite me in and let me help you."

"Yes, of course. Do come in."

Ongreya entered the recluse's apartment. This was going to be a long one. This woman had a genuine mental problem. Nice and juicy.

Dije was finally allowed onto the secret level of Star Morning. It was not what she expected. There were many women there, living dormitory-style in what was clearly supposed to be a ballroom, with inlaid floors and crystal chandeliers and oddly misplaced utilitarian bunkbeds in between. They were not Fallanassi.

They looked like models. Each one of them could have won a beauty competition for the title of her own particular species or planet, except that many of them had purple stains on their faces, in various stages of fading.

"What's wrong with them, Ize?" Dije whispered.

"They are victims of purple tears."

"What's that?"

"Purple Tears was invented for use on livestock. For stud farms. Its inventor never meant it to be used on people."

Dije was distracted by trying to puzzle out this non-answer, so the girl spotted her before Dije noticed the child. A girl of about fourteen, just entering the bloom of womanhood, stepped into the space between bunks and stood in Dije's way. Dije stopped. Then she gasped out loud. It was one of them. One of the children from the Exporter.

"I know you," the girl said in Sith.

Beside her, Ize exclaimed, "She can talk!"

Dije nodded seriously. "Yes. You know me. I'm sorry I couldn't help you back then. I didn't have the power, or the training, to help you. But I'll help you now, if I can."

"You're too late," said the girl. Then she flopped back into her bunk and started crying.

"I'm sorry," Dije said again.

"Come on," said Ize, leading her away. "You've helped already. You can speak her native language. We thought she didn't talk because her traumas had turned her mute. We never even considered that she might just not speak Basic. You can work with her, help her adjust to her new life in the hidden city."

"Where did you find her?"

"We take them when the media points them out to us. That's what happens after they report to the police. The Corporate Sector has some really backwards laws. They muzzle reporting on high level scandals and then splash the faces of rape victims all over the holonet."

"But, if you take them after they make a police report, doesn't that mean you're preventing the cops from catching the bad guys and sending them to jail?"

"That is not our concern. Our task is to help the victims. We keep them out of the public eye, so the slavers will never find them again, and get them settled in their own community, where they practice self-help, and heal each other."

"Why should they have to hide?" Dije dared to ask, feeling her gut go fluttery.

"It is the decision of the elders," Ize replied, in a tone that brooked no further questioning.

Dije helped serve lunch and clean up, and then went back to her quarters feeling queasy. She thought, when the only tool you've got is a bolt cutter, everything looks like a bolt. The Fallanassi possess illusion, and they use their art to hide people. So whenever they find people who need help, of course they hide them.

In the privacy of her room, Dije whispered, "I couldn't help the slaves because I wasn't a Jedi yet. And I'm still not. I turned aside from my path. I need to do something. Something more than just hiding the victims afterwards."

It had been almost exactly a year since Luke had last been in Corporate space. He wondered how Dije was doing. He imagined her happily snuggled into a community of like-minded pacifists, working for peace and saving lives as the Fallanassi had been doing when Luke met them during the Yevetha War.

He resisted the temptation to check the tracking program and find out where Star Morning was. He was here to track down the last known location of a Jedi who might have survived the Jedi Purges by becoming, of all things, a Corporate accountant. Or, so the records on Coruscant hinted. Luke had trailed possible Jedi sightings all over the galaxy, with mixed success. He had recovered a great deal of information that he was using to rebuild the Jedi Order, but he had yet to find any live Jedi from the old order. After all this time, if there were any Jedi still alive besides himself and his own students, they would surely have come forward by now. Likely he was tracking a ghost. But he might find something useful.

His first step was to find and befriend the suspected Jedi's Corporate boss, who might know where he went or what happened to his possessions, or at least who his non work acquaintances had been. For that, he had to get himself invited to a gala. Well, that shouldn't be difficult; he was famous, after all. What was fame good for, if not opening doors for him?

Many months passed while Dije attended classes and prayer gatherings, and talked with the rescued slave girl, and served meals. She saw the hidden city, although she was not allowed into the pilot compartment of the shuttle when she landed or took off; the Fallanassi took no chances that she might find out where they were and blab it to someone.

Dije mentally contrasted that with her trip across the galaxy to find the Fallanassi. Luke had let her make all the takeoffs and landings herself. Even the very first takeoff from the used starship yard, in the heavy traffic of Coruscant; he had activated the copilot's board and so there were live controls under his hands, but he had not touched them, although he had twitched once or twice. Strange landing patterns, narrow docking doors, wind shear, he had let her deal with it all, content to offer occasional advice. The Fallanassi wouldn't let her look out the window.

Back aboard Star Morning, Dije was at sundown prayers. That was what they still called the evening invocation, even though the Fallanassi had lived on a spaceship for so long the children had to be taught what sundown was by looking at the painted murals on the walls.

One of the elderly Fallanassi suddenly fell over. Everyone rushed to her. "Stay back, give her some air," the medico commanded. "My bag!" Someone brought her doctor bag, which was an incongruous bright pink, dripping with fringe and beadwork. She used some instruments that Dije did not recognize. "No heartbeat," the medico said, readying another instrument.

Someone tried to take the old woman's hand, but the doctor yelled, "Clear!" and everyone stood back. She did something with the instrument, then bit off some choice curses in Ancient Sith. "Damn thing's defective! You!" she pointed at someone in the crowd at random. "Get the antigrav stretcher. We need to get her to the infirmary immediately!"

Dije received a sudden Force prompting. She was so unused to touching the Force now that it staggered her. All at once, she comprehended the use of the machine, and what was wrong with it. It was a defibrillator, and it was supposed to produce electricity, and had not done so.

In preternatural calm, Dije padded forward, feeling the Fallanassi part around her like water around rock. She knelt by the dead woman and placed her hand on her chest. Dije called lightning.

Zap! The Force came to her, clean and pure as the air and snow and icy springs of an uninhabited mountain. Sun-white, still, free of all sound and emotion. The transcendant Light.

The dead woman breathed.

The Fallanassi drew back from Dije, casting dark glances at her as they gathered up the elderly nun and took her to the ship's sickbay. No one said a word to Dije. She remained kneeling on the floor, emptied out, at peace for the first time since she had come aboard.

After about an hour, Ize approached her. "It is forbidden," Ize said softly. When Dije did not respond, Ize continued, "You know it's not permitted to use the Force. The elders say you have to perform a ceremony of obedience."

Dije climbed to her feet. "I saved her life."

"That doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

Ize shook her head. "A Fallanassi novice is expected to do as she's told. The elders make the decisions. You know that's the way it works, Dije. You've been here for almost a year now."

"A year in which I worked up to what, kitchen maid? Where is the power I was promised, Ize? My illusions are still as insubstantial as they were when I arrived."

"This is not a path of power."

Dije breathed in and calmed herself; it was a Jedi technique. Sometime in the last year, she had developed the ability to summon calm without touching either the Light or the White Current, and without using song. Perhaps she had simply grown up.

"I know, Ize. What must I do."

The ritual happened that evening, after the starflower prayers, which were usually sung an hour before bedtime. All the Fallanassi who were above Dije in the hierarchy swam one ceremonial lap in the pool and then lined up at the pool's edge.

Ize advised her, "Concentrate on the beauty."

"What beauty?"

"Toenails."

Then it was time. The gong sounded, and Dije got into the water. She started at one end of the line. So, painted toenails: red, these, and not very imaginative. Dije kissed the freckled foot.

This wasn't fair. She had saved the ungrateful old crone's life.

Then she went to the next one in line. A little more creative: spring green with pink and white flowers. Much better.

This was humiliating. She was a Dark Lady and should not be kissing anybody's anything. She reminded herself, I am doing this for my people. Dije choked back tears.

The next one: sparkly clear, embedded with little jewels. That was actually pretty. It made little crystal rainbows.

Dije found she could separate herself from what she was doing by focusing on the nail art. She dissociated herself from the degradation of the foot-kissing ritual.

Finally it was over. Dije had not counted how many feet she had kissed, but it was a lot. Finally she had gotten past the last one, and Wialu placed a hand on Dije's braid-covered head in token of blessing. Then Dije was allowed to leave. As soon as she had changed back into her dress in the locker room, Dije sped back to her room and let herself cry.

"I hate you!" Dije raged. She stretched out her hands and dark smoke poured from them. The smoke condensed into snakes. The snakes coiled and hissed with a hundred flicking tongues like fire.

Dije gestured and the snakes struck at the piles of useless 'stuff': artworks, she supposed, mostly fabric and porcelain, but given to her because their creators had no room for them. The snakes bit through cloth, exploded into clay statues and sent bits of slivers flying, tossed beads into the walls, gnawed at the carpeting and slashed the deckplates beneath.

All these rituals. Levels, tests to pass, secrets promised and used like the fruit dangled in front of the dray nerf. Techniques promised, to gain her obedience and her silence. It was poisonous.

It was nearly Sith.

Abruptly, her eyes dried up with the shock of realization. She went to the little sink in the corner and washed away her ruined makeup. She looked at herself in the mirror, clean at last, her tattoos revealed. This was who she was, who she was born to be.

The Fallanassi were not 'nearly' Sith. They were Sith.

Threat of punishment, promise of reward: both equally manipulative. Both things she had seen Uncle Thodvexer use to keep control of his minions. So, the Fallanassi would never hurt her physically. They had done so mentally plenty of times.

How could she have missed it? Fallanassi, Massassi. Both words in Ancient Sith. Both peoples who had served the Dark Lords of the Golden Age. The Fallanassi were Sith.

Dije's snakes faded away, but the broken artworks remained. Her room looked like a tornado wielding a vibroblade had gone through it. There were even bite marks that went all the way into the metal deck beneath the ruined rug.

She whispered, "Illusion that is more than illusion. The power of fanged serpents. I have it at last. Hatred broke through for me. That was the key. Helpless rage. Just like with the lightning. No wonder they forbid the Force. If I'd reached for it right then it would have been the dark side. But can I use this power without the hate? Can I make it come to me in peace, as I learned to call the lightning in peace?"

Dije conjured another snake, and made it snap the head off a chipped statue. Then she let it dissipate. Dije picked up the statuette and traced the smooth finish and the crepey interior plane of the neck, with her fingers.

"Now I have what I set out to learn. And like the Sith they are, I had to learn it on my own. Now I can escape."

Dije tossed the pottery back down and it broke a little more as it hit the carpeted deck, with a muffled sound. "Escape. I'm not a prisoner here. I came here of my own free will, and so I will leave. Pack first. Yes, pack first. Bring what? Not art. Clothing, perhaps. Food? Yes, some, not too much. My handcomp, with my gene scan. No, wait. Go to the lab and download Luke's scan too? A present, of sorts? No, if he wanted one he could have one easily enough. No. Go now, at night, while no one will expect you anywhere."

Dije tossed the handcomp into a patchwork satchel, and stuffed in a dress at random. Then she took it out and considered what she would need. For nostalgia's sake, she carefully folded and packed the pale green sequined dress she had worn at her initiation. To remind herself that the things she had learned her were important, and worth knowing, and her sacrifice was not in vain.

Then she pulled out the black catsuit. She had never worn it, except to try it on. Someone had given it to her in a mound of other castoff costume projects. The skintight jumpsuit creaked as she put it on. She was fairly sure the Fallanassi would not make anything out of actual leather, but it was certainly a good fake. Next, the boots and belt.

It was as close as she could come to a Sith bodysuit, given the available wardrobe. It really did not look like something a mercenary should wear to battle.

Dije snorted, the first humor she had felt in a long time. "Dressed like this, I shouldn't have any trouble walking in the front door of a porn studio. I won't even need any illusions. Getting out again, that's the trick. Without doing violence to anyone, that is."

Dije slung the satchel over her shoulder and went to the shuttle lock. She did not know the code to open the door, but she did not need it. Not now that she was no longer avoiding the Force. She reached out to the electronic lock and it opened.

Dije went in, tossed her satchel on a seat, and calmly closed the door. She went to the cockpit and released the docking clamps, warmed up the engine, and skipped the preflight. It was remarkably easy to steal a ship. An empty one, anyway. An empty, small one with no hyperdrive.

Dije aimed for the planet and dove. Opening the comm frequencies, she scanned for clues as to which planet she was about to land on. She looked at the transponder beacons of the other ships entering and leaving local space, and she was riveted by a familiar name: Swamp of Delight. The little Sith slave girl had said she overheard Sekin the Hutt saying that was the name of his smuggling ship.

Dije reached out with the Force. She did not know what a Hutt's mind felt like, but she was fairly sure the only person on the Swamp of Delight was human. An employee, then, not the bigshot evildoer himself, but it would do. Here was her chance to strike a blow for truth and justice.

Dije changed her angle of descent. She maneuvered the Fallanassi shuttle to hover over Swamp of Delight. The slightly larger craft tried to maneuver away from her, but she stuck to it. Swamp of Delight banked, zigged and zagged, rotated its cannon. Dije stretched out with the Force and made the laser cannon malfunction. She brought her ship in closer and closer until she forced Swamp of Delight down into the atmosphere.

Dije grinned evilly. "This works just as well in a shuttle as it does in an X-wing."

She forced Swamp of Delight to land. Then she landed the shuttle and hopped out, just as a police aircar screamed up to the scene.

A human with a day's growth of beard stormed out of Swamp of Delight and shouted, "Who taught you to fly, you crazy monkey lizard?"

"Luke Skywalker. Unfortunately, he also taught me how to swim."

"Kriffing smart aleck, are you?"

The man started forward, but prudently backed away as a patroller got out of the police aircar.

"She's nuts, officer!"

"Maybe," Dije conceded. "But you're a slaver." Dije turned to the policeman. "That ship belongs to Sekin the Hutt, a dealer in child sex slaves."

The policeman spoke to someone on a commlink. Calling in a check on the ships, apparently, because he said. "Alright, come along, miss."

"What about the slaver? What about Swamp of Delight?"

"That's none of your concern, miss. Your ship, however, was reported stolen. Come along quietly, now."

The man asked, "Am I free to go, officer?"

"Stick around a minute. Let me get her into the back and then I need to take a statement from you about this incident."

"You're letting him get away?" Dije squeaked.

Dije did not see if the slaver got away, because she was whisked off to the local jail while Swamp of Delight was still parked on the ground. It took a week before her case came before a judge. A week of playing Threat and Counterthreat, and learning to be a Sith again.

A week in which none of the Fallanassi came to talk to her. She tried to convince herself she was not disappointed.

At last she came before the judge. Her read to her a record of her statement to the police officer that the other ship was a slave ship. The judge told her that the police had confirmed that was true, and that a very high level person had commended them for capturing it, although they had nothing on the pilot and had had to let him go. The judge also told her that he understood she was a juvenile of the age of 17 who had taken the shuttle from the ship she lived on to run away, and that he knew she was not really a ship thief, so he was inclined to be lenient.

"Do you have anything to say before I sentence you?"

"Where the law can't reach, the Jedi can." Dije marveled at her own voice, so calm and matter-of-fact. There was none of the querulous shyness that had afflicted her among the Fallanassi.

The judge looked startled. This was not in his script of how the trial should go. "You fancy yourself a Jedi?"

"Not yet," Dije said.

He nodded decisively, back on script now. "Have you learned your lesson?"

"Yes." And she had. She did not say it aloud, but inside, she thought, I have learned my lesson. If I am to embrace violence, I must do it wholeheartedly. I didn't go far enough. He got away because I wasn't willing to do what I had to do.

The Producer said, "It's getting expensive to keep sending the Acquisition Team to different planets."

The Director replied, "It's not safe to hunt in the same place twice, since Purple Tears doesn't block the victims' memories."

"I've got an idea. We pull male victims from the local population, don't we?"

"Sure. They can't go to the police. The way the laws are written, they'd go down for the rape. The Corporate Sector is great for having laws that haven't kept up with the times, and for being pretty easy on businesses. That's why we sited our studio here in the first place."

The Producer nodded and said, "Save us from New Republic law, that's for certain. A patchwork of local systems' laws all superimposed over a hodgepodge of special interest driven legislation, and you never know what's coming next. The Corporate Sector has stability. So here's my idea. The audience really loves the concept of taking victims at random, but let's just do the male victims that way. We can use slaves for the women."

"I think we can handle that. For Purple Tears Live we don't want recognizable faces, but we could step up the buy and sell reate."

"Cheaper than all those trips offworld, you think?"

"Probably. Let's try it out and see how the numbers go."

Dije was free at last.

The fine had been large, but she found her personal retinal identifier connected her to a much larger bank account than she had expected. So, she could add investment portfolio management to the long list of things she could trust Luke with. She would never have guessed he had that kind of sophistication.

The first thing she did was have a really good breakfast. The second thing was to buy a nice black leather belt pouch to keep her handcomp and green dress in, and get rid of the artsy-craftsy satchel. She gave the empty patchwork bag to a vagrant on the street, and felt a peculiar smirk spread across her face.

The third thing Dije did was stake out the spaceport. It was not hard to spot the Fallanassi shuttle coming in. She was never going to forget what the outside of that ship looked like, since the confrontation with the slaver and the Espo was burned into her brain.

Using illusion to disguise herself would have called attention to her from the Fallanassi, so instead Dije simply bought a black cloak and kept the hood up, and looked pretty much like any other Sith mercenary cruising the starport for a job.

Given the presence of the slave ship, Dije knew what the Fallanassi must be here for. This must be the planet where the SVN's victims appeared. She trailed the Fallanassi for days, until she was sure they really did not know where the studio was. But they did lead her to a victim.

Dije let them take the latest victim away. She was interested in who came to investigate the witness's disappearance. Dije followed the detective. The very frustrated detective. He was thinking very very loudly, and Dije had no trouble hearing him in the Force, without being the least bit intrusive.

He knew where the studio was, alright. The Sex and Violence Network operated openly here. They did not exactly have an ad in the comm directory, but the police knew about them. They just couldn't pin anything on them. Because nobody who made a complaint against them ever made it to court to testify, and the Espos were absolutely stymied about how they did it, since the studio really did not seem to have anything to do with the disappearances.

Dije pulled the address from the police detective's mind. She was going to go rescue the next victim before: before the Fallanassi got to her, before she made a police report, before the crime happened. Dije did not bother with illusion. She just walked straight in.

There was a guard at the front desk. Dije caused the alarm he was reaching for to go dead, so no one else was alerted. Then she reached out and pulled his stunner out of his hand, and used it on him. He slumped over his desk unconscious.

She walked around the desk and looked at the security monitors. One screen was designated as a live feed from the cell of the latest star of Purple Tears Live. The show was starting right now! The screen was split down the middle, one half showing a bored looking woman sitting on a red velvet bed, chatting with a stage hand, both of them drinking steaming liquids. The other half of the screen was a cell containing a male victim, purple tears streaming down his face.

It took a moment for Dije to recognize him past the dark slime. Then she flung down the stunner and ran in his direction. Whoever got in her way, Dije was going to kill.


	5. Chapter 5

Purple Tears

Subcasters series. After Star Morning.

"Who's that?" asked the head of the Acquisition Team.

"I don't know, but he does look familiar, doesn't he? Some kind of minor celebrity."

"Think he'll do?"

"I don't know. His face is kind of lopsided."

"Botched reconstructive surgery. Probably done under wartime conditions. I've seen the look before. Looks fine for about a decade, then it starts to shift over time. Hey Liria, what do you think, is he still handsome?"

"Sure," the third member of the team, a human female, replied. "Forget the face, anyway. It's going to be mostly covered in chemical goo. He's got an athlete's body. Not really great muscles, more of a gymnast than a wrestler, but good and fit anyway."

"Pick him up. The marketing team can figure out who he is later."

"You're on, Liria."

"I've gloved up, give me the contact lotion." One of the few good things about formal evening wear was that women could wear gloves up to their armpits and no one batted an eye.

Liria got the drug onto her gloves and pursued the blond man. He spotted her almost as soon as she started trailing him, and Liria thought she might have to break off and go back, and wait for a chance at someone else, but then she saw him turn back around with a little shrug of one shoulder, as if writing her off as an expected part of this party.

They were at a reception for the announcement of some company's latest cool gadget, and most of the guests were industry people, but there were also a few celebs mixed in to liven up the event and draw media attention. Liria figured the more experienced members of the team must be right, and he must be someone famous, because he was acting like he took being stalked by women at parties as a normal part of his day.

Liria decided to go with that angle, and instead of trying the old stumble routine, she walked directly up to him and tried to sound ditzy as she gushed, "Oh my heavens I can't believe it, can I shake your hand? Please?"

The blond man crinkled his eyes kindly at her, said "Sure," and let her shake his hand. Then he looked over her shoulder, saying, "Excuse me please," and went on. The man took two steps before his eyes rolled up in his head and he slumped over.

Liria was ready. The man was neither very tall nor very heavy, and she had practiced variations on this move a hundred times. She stepped forward, half-turned him, and got a shoulder under his arm, and set her legs, so when he passed out completely in his next heartbeat, it almost looked like they were doing a slow dance together. She hustled him into a side corridor, and then the three of them got him out the back exit and into the waiting air car.

There was a crackle of electricity, a puff of smoke, and the door opened. "I'm here to rescue you," Dije announced with a smile, and a flourish toward the doorway.

Luke jumped on her. They fell to the floor.

"Oof! Is that a lightsaber in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"

She pushed him off with the Force, and he pushed back with the Force.

"Oh no, he can still use the Force!"

He attacked. Both physically and in the Force, he was the stronger. She grabbed his shoulders and lifted, but it was no use. Purple tears fell from his eyes onto her face, spattering across her forehead tattoo.

"If you're in there, Luke, purge the drug!"

She didn't dare try to link with him, in his drugged state. She was afraid she would be drawn into the purple state of mind. But she did passively receive impressions from the emotions he was projecting. There was no calm center from which he could use the Force to move the drug out of his system. There was nothing in him but the most primitive emotions of fight and rut.

"Nothing in there but aggression. Oh no! Luke, stop! You're using the Dark Side!"

She considered just letting it happen. But his face was wild, a painted savage, wide-eyed and weeping. All the things that would have made Luke an attractive lover— his knightliness, his goodness, his caring, his self-control, the combination of power with being so totally in touch with his own feelings, a rare pairing indeed—these were all gone, and there was nothing left but an animal. Dije was certain Luke himself, wherever he was, buried under the berserker pelt of the drug, would have been the first to pull him off of her if he had somehow been able to appear beside them in his right mind in this moment.

And besides, Dije knew there must be a holocam in here somewhere. If Luke were able to choose, Dije was sure he would not choose to make a spectacle of himself on the Purple Tears Live subcast. Plus, there had to be more than one security guard around. They did not have time to mess around. Dije had to get him out of here before more guards arrived.

There was only one thing she could do. Only one way to fight and win against someone far stronger than herself. And it was not the art of illusion.

"I'm sorry about this."

Dije reached for the Force. She reached for the Light. And she reached for the lightning.

Dije centered herself and closed her eyes, and concentrated on her fingertips. She still grasped Luke's shoulders, but she was no longer trying to push him away. Instead, she summoned the noble gift.

Force-lightning came to her, ever ready to her hand. She loosed it with a horrible sizzle and pop, and Luke fell away from her screaming.

"Come on." Dije tried to get him on his feet and steer him out the door, but he attacked again.

Dije poured Force-lightning into Luke until he fell, and she did not stop. He shrieked and writhed on the floor and she kept the lightning flowing. He could not attack, either physically or with the Force. This was the reason the lightning was called the noble gift. Because those who had it could defeat anyone who didn't, no matter how middling her own power, no matter how strong he was in the Force.

Dije choked down hard on her own pity. She used a Fallanassi technique to keep herself from flinching away from what she had to do. Dije was aware of the bitter irony of invoking Fala for this extreme act of violence, but then Dije let go of that irony and let herself flow. The world of flesh was an illusion. The flash of the lightning was beautiful. The strange blue fire that circled Luke's teeth for a second as he screamed was nothing but color and light and shape, a sculpture in honor of the Goddess. She let the lightning flow.

"The Force is Life, Luke. Live." Dije was a Dark Lady once again. And a Jedi. And a Fallanassi. All three systems merged within her.

At last the screaming stopped. Luke lay still.

Dije ceased the lightning and sagged briefly against the wall.

She picked up his limp body with the Force and got him out the door.

Then she got a strong Force prompting to bring him to the spaceport. It was just like when the Force had pulled her to a street on the planet Msha when mercenaries were attacking Luke.

It would have been easier to tow him behind her with the Force like a box. But that might have attracted attention. She propped him up with the Force, moved his feet with the Force, left one, right one, left one, right one, and the concentration required was exhausting. But this way, she looked like she was helping a drunken friend walk home.

She had his left hand, his flesh hand, pulled over and locked in her left hand, and most of his weight dragged across her shoulders. Dead weight, she thought. But she could feel the presence of his life in the Force, and there was heat coming from his body, which was both reassuring and disconcerting at the same time. She had not killed him. She had handled the Force-lightning exactly right, precisely the way a Sith initiation was supposed to work. Knocking him out had been the right choice.

"I lost my one chance," Dije thought.

Unconscious, he was just Luke again. The dark liquid coming from his eyes was just another object now.

It would have been wrong to let anything happen while he was drugged out of his mind. Especially in front of the cameras. And it would have wasted precious escape time.

But they were away now, and the holocams and any guards that might have been rushing to recapture them were far behind. She didn't have to follow the Force prompting. She didn't have to go to the spaceport. She could take him to a hotel.

"No," Dije whispered. "No, that would be wrong." Dije followed the Force.

Dije arrived at the spaceport hardstands and looked out at the assembled ships.

Sith Raider was there.

The Sith Raider was registered at the spaceport as Dawn Rose, which was its real name. Dawn Rose was a racing yacht. It was thirty years past its prime, but it was still a very fast ship, which is what had attracted Kerruke to it when she was presented with her choice of small unarmed pre-owned vessels by the government of the New Republic. Since then Dawn Rose had acquired a slapped-on gun turret, a name painted in black Sith letters across its peeling rosy hull, and a souped-up lifesupport system—the better to haul mercenary troopers.

"My Lady!"

"Get all your men who have the field effect talent. I need him held in a suppression field."

"My Lady, isn't he— Weren't you his bodyguard?"

"I'll explain later. Get the men, and a med droid if you have one. Do you have a medical bay?"

"No, just some supplies in a cabinet."

"How about a room that locks?"

"We have a cell, my Lady. We converted one of the staterooms for when we work for the bounty hunter."

"Good. Get the men."

Kerruke called the men. Four tattooed Sith got Luke into the cell stateroom and held him in a suppression field.

"Do you have a med droid?"

"No."

"Any droid?"

"We have a butler droid. He came with the ship. He's a translator and housekeeper."

"That will do. Hopefully Luke won't attack a droid like he would a person. Have you got any sterile bags or small containers? Good. Have the droid hand them to Luke, collect them and freeze them for later use. That's our reward, and your payment for the use of your ship and crew. A third for you, a third for me, and a third for your crew. To use, to sell, or to give away. But only to sell or give to other Sith. This prize is for our people alone. Keep my cut for me. I won't have access to a medical freezer on my hunt."

"What prize? My Lady, I don't understand."

"DNA, Kerruke. It's a legitimate medical procedure. The drug comes out in the tears, but it comes out in other fluids too. That's how it clears the body."

"My Lady!" Kerruke hissed.

"I know. But he won't remember it. I've seen the victims of this drug. I've seen them not recover. I can't let him remember the whole day, and probably several days to come. Memory holes are annoying. Memories like these are soul-destroying. I'm going to cap his memory. I'll have to do it before the drug wears off completely. While he's still in too much mental chaos to resist."

"My Lady, that's—that's sarav!" Kerruke strangled the last word, either frightened of the idea or frightened of arguing with a Dark Lady, or perhaps both.

"Ironic. He's the one who taught me how to do it. And it's OK to tell me when you think I'm doing wrong. You're the Captain of this ship."

Kerruke nodded cautiously.

"But the drug made him attack me, Kerruke. I can't let him remember doing that. Luke's already got some serious sexual hang-ups. From spending his formative dating years in love with his sister, you see. He's already been through so much in his life. I can't fix it all, but I can fix this one thing. He can't be traumatized by memories he doesn't have."

"What about you, my Lady? What about your recovery?"

"I'm the rescuer. I have no feelings of helplessness to overcome."

Kerruke got the butler droid into Luke's cell and closed the door. From the images on the security camera, when Luke awoke, Luke did seem to settle down when he could not see any people around him, as Dije had hoped.

"I need a workbench and some tools. Pliers. A sheetmetal hole punch. Solder gun or laser welder."

Kerruke went white. "Wh-what?"

"I'll write out a list of the parts I need."

"Oh—you're building something. I thought—" Kerruke shook her head and sighed.

"And bring me a gemstone. The most flawless you have. I have some people to kill."

She set up the workbench in front of the monitor, so she could keep an eye on Luke. He seemed to be doing alright in the stateroom. Dije had memorized these circuit diagrams a year ago, so she was a little nervous when she first turned on her creation. But it did not blow up in her hand.

The black garnet pried out of Kerruke's necklace yielded a blade color was that almost maroon. Dije admired it for several minutes, lost in the beauty of it. She snapped back to normal consciousness at Kerruke's choked gurgle.

At first Dije was confused. Surely Kerruke could not be reacting to the blasphemy of flowing into a Fallanassi meditation on the beauty of craftwork when the object she had crafted was a weapon of violence. Then Dije remembered how she had felt about lightsabers before attending the Academy. Before Luke's help.

"Don't be afraid," Dije said. "This is for use on those who hurt Luke. It's important to me that when I avenge him, it will be the revenge of the Jedi."

"What do you want us to do, my Lady?"

"Guard Luke, and the ship. Keep him in the suppression field. Send a few men with me to control the perimeter. Keep all the womp rats in one trap. I'll deal with the people inside personally."

Kerruke smiled, then. "And you'll enjoy it. I understand at last."

Dije threw open the doors and strode into the holo studio. The same guard was back behind the desk. This time Dije shorted out the monitors and alarms with Force-lightning. She ripped the stunner out of his hand, but did not stun him. She had learned that only meant she would have to do it again, and there was neither mercy nor pity in her now, not for anyone involved in subjecting Luke to such a terrible degradation.

Dije ignited her lightsaber and struck off the guard's head.

This time there were more guards in the corridor, and they fired red blaster bolts at her. She deflected them with the lightsaber. Calmly, in total control, Dije walked around the corner and cut down her opponents like a farmer scything grain in the Sacred Lands.

She walked on into the complex. There were more guards; she killed them. Gladiators in gaudy armor rushed at her. Dije knew they were slaves, so she tried to give them a chance to live. She disarmed them, in the literal fashion that had once given her nightmares. But they still came on, and she had to stab them through their hearts. Sometimes the aliens had their hearts in unexpected places, and she had to cut off their heads too.

There were screams and running footfalls. The studio was stirred up like a sand-bug nest. Dije opened every door, systematically killing anyone with a weapon and destroying any recording equipment or computers she saw.

Once she opened a door on a girl a few years younger than Dije, who shrieked in terror and cast herself on the floor on seeing the lightsaber. Dije did not recognize the child, but she could have been from the Exporter or another ship like it. The girl's mind cried out in terror of the Jedi weapon, and Dije had to brace her mind against the torrent to avoid being carried away with the fear herself. She heard words in the cry, Sith words.

"Are you a slave?" Dije asked in Sith.

The girl nodded.

"Get out of here. You're free. Go home."

"Home? Who do you think sold me into slavery?" the girl gibbered.

"Alright then, just go. Outside there are some Sith mercenaries. Tell them Lady Dije said to help you. Tell them that I said one of them should take you to the police station to report the slavers, and stay with you as your bodyguard until the trial is over, so no one can disappear you."

The girl refocused from the saber to Dije's tattooed face and seemed reassured. She nodded, scrabbled up and ran.

Dije went on. Computers and droids died by Force-lightning. People died by lightsaber. Finally she had all the noncombatants herded into one room.

Dije thought of simply killing them all, as they sat or squatted on the floor before her, helpless. But she could not do that. It would be wrong.

She had to have a way to sort out which ones needed killing. Well, she had been planning to commit sarav on Luke; surely she could invade the minds of these enemies as well. And see what there? What would be her criteria?

One thing was easy; she separated the slaves from the willing participants in this horror, and let the slaves go. There were no other kidnap victims there at the moment. That left a half dozen men.

Dije realized not everyone involved was here. Some people had left after the broadcast. And some had never been on this planet at all. The Sex and Violence Network had far-flung operations, and partners who catered to its needs: slavers, drugrunners, and other unsavory types.

This was not going to be over when she had killed everyone here.

Dije went into their minds again. She learned the subcast had already been broadcast live, and she could not simply destroy the recordings in the studio to prevent the holocast from going out. Information, once propagated to the Hobgoblin, was impossible to eradicate. But there was one item of information, in minds and machines, that she could utterly destroy. Only one person here knew the formula for Purple Tears. Dije cut off his head.

One by one, she stopped in front of each of her captives and judged him. Some of them cried and begged for mercy. Others cursed in bravado. Some simply waited.

None of these knew the formula to make Purple Tears. But they had seen her face.

Dije knocked them all out with the guard's stunner. Then, regretfully, she wiped herself from their minds. It was the simple memory technique of preventing long term encoding.

Dije deactivated her lightsaber and walked back out the way she had come. If only she had thought of it before the vital few minutes had passed, she could have done that to Luke on their way to the spaceport. But she had not thought of it, and now she would have to cap his memory instead.

Dije spent some time searching through whatever records she had not destroyed, looking for the identities and locations of other people who might be involved in production of Purple Tears. She gathered up some notes. In her ransacking of the studio, she ran across a bin where personal effects of the victims were kept. She recognized Luke's lightsaber, and clipped it to her belt. She would hold onto for him, until it was safe to give it back.

This hunt was not over. It would not be over for a long time.

Hareng walked through the vandalized studio and shook his head. "All the droidcams, cut up like so much cake. It'd take an hour to slice through all that with a beam cutter. This is the work of a madman, boss."

"No," said the Producer, his face ashen. "It wasn't a beam cutter. Lightsaber. Not everybody woke up scratching their heads. Well, not everybody woke up, but the dead guards weren't killed with shop tools, that's for certain. One of the slave girls came back. She said she'd been freed by a Jedi."

"Came back, huh? What, wanting her job back?"

"Why not? What else does she know how to do?"

Hareng made the thumb-circling gesture. "So what now?"

"Now we clean up, and go on. Or, you clean up. I decide how to go on."

"Right." Hareng toed some of the wreckage. "How'd the Jedi get into this, anyway? We're pretty far from the New Republic, and we've never hunted there."

"What, didn't you look at that last subcast while you were filming it?"

Hareng made the thumb-circling gesture that served his species for a shrug.

"Well, I guess the Acquisition Team didn't recognize him either, or they would've had to be crazy to bring him in. I knew we were in trouble when the holocams went live and I saw who we had, but it was too late by then. On the plus side, marketing's going to have a field day with this. Don't worry about the equipment, Hareng. We'll make it all back and then some."

"But there wasn't any sex," Hareng protested.

"Unfortunate, but the fight was pretty good. That young Sith was just incredible. And did you see that outfit? I couldn't've picked anything better myself. Really showed her figure. No, don't worry, we're coming out ahead on this one. We're going to do a special for the fight crowd: see! The Dark Lady versus Luke Skywalker."

"That was—oh. Wow."

Luke woke up aboard an unfamiliar ship. Four tattooed Sith were holding him in a suppression field. Dije Kun was there. He had not seen her in a year. She was wearing his lightsaber.

Luke blinked gluey eyes, his thoughts in drug-mazed confusion. Then his mind caught up with what he was seeing, and just for a moment, he was utterly terrified.

Dije said, "Long ago you asked me to teach you the ways of the Sith. Today you passed the final test of a Sith initiation. You have earned the secrets. And a tattoo, but I don't have a tattooist onboard. Which is just as well, since it would create political problems for both of us if today's events became known. Today, you became a Sith. And I became a Jedi."

"What happened to your forehead?" There were purple spatters on it.

Ignoring the question, Dije gave Luke the initiation knowledge. He felt like he was moving through molten glass. His thoughts were slow, confused, painful, but there was a white-hot clarity to his skin.

Dije said, "Traditionally, a Force ghost appears to the initiate and tells him all about this. We don't happen to have any here, and you've already seen a Force ghost or two. The type you'd see in a Sith initiation are the kind that are bound to a place or object, like dear old Exar Kun. The lesson is supposed to be that you need never die. Of course, I can't imagine anyone preferring a placebound existence if they could be like your Yoda and Obi-Wan and so forth. OK, back on script now. The Force is Life. That is the first lesson and the last. That is what it means to be a Sith. Now call me Darthe-nir and acknowledge me as your initiatrix."

Luke repeated, "Darthe-nir."

"Ah. Good. You've said the word. The party is supposed to begin now, traditionally. But I think we'd better wait until the drug clears your system entirely. That will probably be another two or three days more, unless you think you can purge it with the Force if I have the mercenaries turn the suppression field off. Are you up to that?"

Luke took a moment to realize what she was asking. He could picture the technique she meant, but that level of concentration was beyond him right then. He fought down odd impulses that seemed to run through him like parasitic worms beneath his skin. He was still considering his response in his syrup-slow thoughts when Dije apparently decided for him.

"You're doing really well to control yourself right now, but it'll be easier for you if you're by yourself. The butler droid here will help you with whatever you need. Food, a change of clothes, books, whatever you want."

"What drug?"

"There's a truly sybaritic fresher through that door. This ship was supposed to be a racing yacht, but the yachtsmen must have been more spoiled noblemen than serious racers."

"Where are we? Why am I being held in a suppression field?"

"You're aboard the Sith Raider, and that's just a precaution at this point. Something bad happened to you, Luke. But you're safe now."

"What happened?"

"Don't try to remember, Luke. Some bad people kidnapped you. I've already taken care of the ones on the planet below. I'll hunt down the others. I will avenge you. I had to knock you out with Force-lightning to get you out of there. And you lived, so that's how you came to pass the Sith initiation test." Dije gestured to the other Sith and left the cushy cell, her men at her back.

Luke was left alone with the butler droid. He went into the fresher and saw his face in the mirror. Purple stains streaked from his eyes.

He stared at himself in shock. As he watched, more purple tears wormed their way from his tear ducts down his cheeks.

He knew what Purple Tears were.

He thought of the purple splashes on Dije's forehead, and thought of the height difference between them. "I thought she was shorter than that." Then he realized that the stains on his own face were lines, some going down his cheeks and some down his temples to stain his blond hair, but the marks on Dije were dots, dots with little spatter lines from them like craters on an airless moon.

Experimentally, Luke leaned over the sink and watched a tear fall. It splashed wider than the spots on Dije's forehead. He leaned farther until the tears dripped from his eyes and made the same kind of marks he had seen on Dije. He must have wept on her from barely an inch above her. And she must have been lying flat on her back.

Luke was sick in the sink.

Dije and Kerruke spoke on the yacht's bridge. "Take him home. When he asks to have the suppression field turned off, turn it off. Go ahead and have a party, too. To take his mind off his troubles."

Dije noticed that she had said party, not neon, even though she was speaking her native language once again. The Bright slang of her childhood was almost completely gone from her vocabulary.

"Where are you going, My Lady?" Kerruke asked.

"I'm going to hunt down everyone responsible for doing this to him. I'm going to destroy all knowledge of how to make Purple Tears. Whatever it takes. Kill people, erase their memories, destroy droids, information systems. The slavelords of the Sex and Violence Network die. Whoever invented the formula—I hear it was originally meant to be used on animals, in stud farms. The scientist is innocent. But so was Qwi Xux, in her way, and Kyp Durron ripped her mind apart to destroy the knowledge of how to build the Sun Crusher. And he became a Jedi Master afterward. I can remove the Purple Tears formula without doing nearly as much harm as Kyp did to Qwi. I'll be careful. But I will prevent this from ever happening again. To save all the future victims. No matter how well the Fallanassi hide the escaped slaves, and try to deliver victims to help, it's still going to go on shattering lives until somebody puts a final stop to it. And that somebody is me."

"I'm coming with you."

"This is not going to be a series of pirate raids, Kerruke. Most of the people I'm going after, I'm not even going to kill. I'm just going to neutralize them as a threat and move on."

"My Lady, I went to space to get away from my ex husband. And I married him to get away from my parents. Until I met you I'd done nothing but run away. When I saw you become a Dark Lady, I knew I'd found my ticket to the good life. I hitched my tow to a rising star, and now I have this ship and this crew. But now I'm your friend. I want to help, even if it isn't the smartest business decision."

Dije smiled. A friend. She hadn't left all her friends behind after all, when she left Sith-ta and then left the Jedi Academy and then left Star Morning. "You're my right hand, Kerruke."

"Thank you, My Lady. What is our course?"

"Yavin 4. To take Luke home. And my friends call me Dije."

"Yes, Lady Dije. Helm! Set course for the Yavin system."

Even by the standards of the Sith, it was a strange party. Most of the guests spoke in hushed tones, and avoided the honoree. A few people smoke strobe or bit glit, but even they seemed subdued. The only music was a mellow song sung by Dije without accompaniment.

Luke sat at the party with his hood pulled over his face. He did not laugh, or dance, or even eat much.

A blonde Sith named Ojaste approached the initiate timidly. "Would you like a beer, Luke?"

"No thanks."

"Anything?"

"I don't suppose you have any chocolate onboard."

"I'll check in the galley."

A few minutes later she came back with a fruit drink. "We don't have any chocolate, but we've got nakroni juice. It's supposed to be good for you."

Luke hesitated so long before accepting the proffered drink that Ojaste realized he was afraid someone was going to drug him again. But in the end, he did take the nakroni juice.

Two other Sith drifted up next to Luke and Ojaste. They introduced themselves, "We're the brothers Arr, Imei-Sim and Dai-Oni."

Luke asked, "Aren't those Coruscanti names?"

"They're old family names. Family tradition says we're descended from Jedi who joined the Sith long ago. Before the Blockade, obviously."

Luke nodded. The silence stretched out.

After a while one of the brothers joined another conversation circle, and Dai-Oni asked Ojaste if she'd like to do some knifeplay. Her eyes lit up and she agreed, and the two of them went over to a couch. Ojaste pulled off her blacks and lay face down. Dai-Oni pulled his boot knife and carved her up, drawing red designs on her back. Ojaste giggled through the whole thing.

Uncomfortable, Luke turned away.

Dije watched avidly, along with several others. She wanted to experience the incredible subspace high again. She reminded herself that she couldn't afford to show weakness in front of other Sith. So it would be a really bad idea to get in line and ask to be next. But she could passively receive impressions from Ojaste, and Dije opened herself to the Force. The feelings pouring off Ojaste were delicious.

When the knifeplay was over, Dai-Oni got Ojaste some water, and helped her get to a mirror to admire her temporary body art. Dije and the other Sith viewed it and complimented Dai-Oni's artistry.

Then the ship's sounds changed. Luke looked up. They were in atmosphere, coming in for a landing.

Dije walked over to him, as the other Sith cleared out, perhaps going to their duty stations. "You're home. This belongs to you." She handed over his lightsaber, and Luke took it with great relief. He clipped it to his belt, and looked a hundred times more confident, even though she could not see his face beneath his hood. It was in his posture.

"You still have a lightsaber," Luke noticed.

"Yes," Dije affirmed, glancing down at her belt. "I made it."

"Then you are a Jedi."

The ship landed.

"Let me see it," Luke said.

Dije handed it over, and Luke pressed the activating stud. His hand jerked in surprise. "It's red!" he protested.

Dije shrugged. "I'm a Sith."

"And a Jedi," Luke said steadily, deactivating the lightsaber and handing it back.

"Yes. And anyway, it's really more of a wine color." Dije reattached it to her belt. She opened the hatch and extended the ramp, and the humidity of Yavin 4 invaded the cabin. "Good-bye, Luke."

"What will you do now?"

"Make sure this never happens to anyone else. That is my quest."

"A good cause. May the Force be with you."

"And with you."

Luke went home.

End of Purple Tears. Story continues in Dark Lady of the Jedi.


	6. Chapter 6

Dark Lady of the Jedi

Subcaster series. After Purple Tears.

"This is the mission. Completely eradicate all info on how to make Purple Tears. In people, droids, computers, anywhere. This will only work because it's a closely guarded trade secret. The formula isn't all over the holonet. This is the plan. We'll start will the studio. If we were after the customers, all we'd need is the subscriber list. But what we're after is trickier prey: knowledge. We need to find the factory. The workers. The scientist who invented the drug. All doses of the drug, everywhere. All records that include the formula, instructions, or chemical composition. That includes bad guys' labs and police labs too. Government disease archives. Everybody remember the story of Tedow and the Marble Plague? Only someone who knows the Plague's structure can create it. When we find someone who knows it, we'll kill them. Or, if I can get close enough without a fight, I'll wipe out their memory of the formula. Kyp Durron once did that to the scientist who created the Sun Crusher. And this is our first step. We send 2 Sith to infiltrate Marathon. Yes, the holocomm company. What we're after is billing records. Records of holocomm calls. Find out who the studio execs called, who the slavers called, who their accounts payable clerk called, and we find the factory. Eventually. Every time we find someone new who is part of their operation, we get the list of all their calls, and track down each one of those people, and so on. Along the way we kill the slavers, free the slaves, and generally foil the evildoers."

There were no questions from the assembled black-cloaked mercenaries in the Sith Raider's wardroom. They knew they would each be given whatever details they needed to complete their part of the operation.

Dije left the personnel decisions to Kerruke. Captain Kerruke Gradeth assigned the brothers Imei-Sim and Dai-Oni to be the linked pair. One of them would get a job in Marathon's billing department, and the other one would call in pretending to be a customer. Mind-link solved the password problem neatly. The brother pretending to be the customer would simply get the passwords telepathically from the brother who was looking at the information on the screen. And because there would be real calls that could be reviewed by Marathon's quality assurance and management, calls that would sound exactly like a normal billing inquiry, the infiltrator would not be caught digging in files he had no business being in.

"Customer service is an excellent occupation for a Sith. The level of frustration and rage will make you strong in the Dark Side."

"The what?"

"There are sides to the Force. I will teach you, if you like. All of you. I have learned the deadly and forbidden secrets of the Jedi."

When the ship was new, native planetary primitives had once called it the Pillar of Hell. It landed with a great smoke and fume and a blast of retrorockets.

Ongreya assumed human form. She checked her ship and gear, strapped on her hat-cam, and activated the subcast. She exited her ship to find herself in a clearing before a tall building of dark stone. A few curious locals in drab robes gathered around. Some of them were human, some of various other species. None were her target.

There was even an antique, Clone Wars era astromech droid.

Ignoring the assembly, Ongreya spoke to her listeners while panning across the imposing building and dense jungle foliage, and the very picturesque gas giant hanging low in the sky over the trees. "We're here to heal a crime victim. He was far from here when I first heard the call, last week. It was incredibly strong. Then he came here, and since then he's suddenly grown powerful shields. So his voice has gone quiet in my mind. That implies he is starting to recover already, but I still have hold of the safety line his soul threw to me, and his agony is undiminished. Now it has merely become a silent anguish. Let's drop in on him, shall we?"

Ongreya started for the building, only to be stopped by one of the locals. A fragile looking humanoid female with moonstone eyes asked, "What brings you here?"

"Pain brings me here," Ongreya replied. "I am a Psy Healer. I go to the one who has called for me."

"Oh." The woman stepped aside. "I didn't realize he'd called for help. I'm relieved. I'll take you to him."

"Thank you, dear, but it's not necessary. I can feel where he is."

"Oh."

Ongreya stepped into a grand hall. "That was interesting, wasn't it, viewers? She didn't question how I could feel where someone is. But she didn't seem to know how a Psy Healer is called." Ongreya confidently climbed the stairs and came to a small chamber. She knocked, and a robed figure with a hood pulled low over his face answered his door.

"I am Ongreya the Psy Healer. Your pain called out to me across the stars. I can help you."

He was silent a moment. Then, in a voice of surprisingly youthful pitch, he said, "I didn't think I was broadcasting. No one here mentioned any thought leakage. Then again, everyone has been pretty much leaving me alone, as I asked."

"So you know you have shields. And you reinforced them."

"Well, sure. Of course I know."

"But you are still in turmoil. Invite me in." Ongreya exerted her power.

The man's hood moved a little, but that was all. "What was that?"

"You could feel that?"

"Of course I can feel it when someone uses the Force."

"The Force? No, it is the Psy Healer talent."

"Trust me, it's the Force. I haven't gotten so mentally confused that I'd ever be mistaken about that."

"Interesting. Trust me, then. If you can feel my power and do not fear it."

"Huh. You weren't expecting Jedi. How did you get here and not know where you are?"

"Jedi?"

"Well. Alright, now I'm curious. Come on in."

Ongreya entered the small, spare chamber. The furnishings were simple and comfortable, and many appeared to be military surplus. But unlike most military men's quarters, there were no posters or souvenirs displayed to enliven things. It was like a monk's cell. But perhaps there were keepsakes in the drawers of the various chests.

"Leave the door open," the man instructed, sitting down on a metal chair that had a folded military blanket as a pillow, and gestured her to a similar chair.

"Tell me of your pain," Ongreya invoked her power.

"Hey!" he whined. "Don't try to mind-trick me!"

"I wasn't trying."

He snorted, finding that amusing for some unfathomable reason. "No, you were doing. OK. What do you know already?"

"I know something terrible happened. Your control over yourself was taken away from you. I know you can't remember it. You don't have to remember it, to heal. Not via the Psy Healer power, anyway. Psy Healers heal with truth, but not remembering is part of your truth. It is a condition to be accepted."

"Go on."

"You feel horror. Self-loathing. Guilt. And you know that you should not. You are turning yourself inside out trying to transform your feelings. You've done something similar once with other feelings, completely different feelings. Feelings of love. And that didn't work very well either."

The man recoiled from that last statement and one of his hands briefly flicked up, in denial or self-protection. "But you don't know any specifics?"

"No. Sometimes I can see through the eyes of my patients, but very rarely. Only with people who have little to no shielding. From you I only get emotions and vague impressions." Ongreya did not try to use her power again, but she steered back on course. "Tell me your troubles. Pour it out, get it outside of you. And then I can heal you."

"What are you hiding?" 

"Many things," Ongreya replied. "My true form, for one. The Psy Healer gift is linked to my changeling abilities. I don't absolutely have to be in my human seeming to use my talent, but it helps a lot."

"And what else?" the man demanded. "I know you're hiding something important."

"Ah. I see this will be one of the longer and more difficult healings. So be it. Most Psy Healers charge money for their services. I have always felt that to be a betrayal of the gift, to only heal those who have the money to pay for it. Instead, my mission is subsidized by subscribers. Subscribers who keep an eye on what I do."

"Keep an eye how." It was not really a question, and the man's voice had gone whispery without softening in the slightest: deeper, more confident, almost throaty.

"By watching the Psy Healer subcast."

"Subcasting! That's evil." The man stirred in his chair as if about to leap out of it.

"Not at all. It's simply a way to support my work. And a way to help a vast audience without ever even seeing them as patients. Many who subscribe to my subcast are people in need of hope. Watching people be healed, time after time, without fail, gives them the hope they need to go on living and face their own life's problems."

He settled back in his seat. "I can't imagine how finding out what happened to me would give anybody any hope," he said bleakly.

Ongreya suppressed a smile. He was starting to open up to her. "There is more than hope necessary to healing. Relief of the burden of unearned guilt is very important for those like you, who have been victims of crime."

"Unearned? No. I should have been able to stop it."

"All crime victims feel that, from one degree to another."

"You don't understand!"

"Then tell me."

He shifted uncomfortably. "I should have realized I was being set up, not just accosted by a fan. I should have noticed the drug immediately and purged it from my system before it took hold of me."

"Ah. And how long was it between when the criminals drugged you and when you lost control of yourself?"

"About two seconds, I think. Maybe three."

"Listen to what you just said, and imagine what you would say to another crime victim in the same situation."

"Nobody else is in the same situation! Sure, lots of people have been kidnapped that way, but none of them are me!"

"Hmm." Ongreya made an encouraging noise. She had long ago learned not to nod while wearing the subcasting hat. "You are some sort of famous person, then, I take it. Just imagine how much it would help other victims to know their hero is facing the same struggle they are. And to see how you overcome the same problem."

He stilled and leaned forward. Ongreya knew she had found the wedge. He was motivated by service, just as she herself was.

"Do you really think so?"

"I know so. Are you ready to show us your face?"

The man reached up and pulled back his hood. Purple stains on his slightly asymmetrical face spoke eloquently of all the details he had left unvoiced. He had light hair, which had probably been blonde once, and sad rain-colored eyes.

He looked straight into the camera and softly said, "Of all the people in the galaxy, I ought to be able to defend myself."

Ongreya had occasionally been shocked by something she uncovered in the course of healing someone, but never like this. "Good gods. Luke Skywalker?"

He glanced away in embarrassment. "In the flesh. The marked, tainted flesh. The stain is already starting to come off of my face, after a week, but when it is coming off of my soul?"

"Now," Ongreya replied. "That begins now. That's what I'm here for."

"What do I do?"

"Tell me of your pain," Ongreya repeated, not exerting any power this time. Now she could see why it had not worked on him. Of course she could not direct the mind of a Jedi Master without his co-operation. "And when you have poured out your story, you will be ready to let me into your mind. Then I will heal you."

"As simple as that?"

"This is not going to be simple. Or easy. Or quick, or even painless. But it is going to work."

"I see. And what about…" Luke trailed off.

"What about who?" Ongreya prompted.

"Huh. I was sure I had my thoughts pulled in. But you're reading me like I had no shields at all."

"It is my talent. Who?"

Luke looked away and gestured to his face. "This—implies another person. Her."

"She has not called to me. Therefore she does not need me."

"You're sure?"

"I am absolutely certain. But other people do. People you've never met, and probably never will. You can be an example of hope and healing. All you need to do is let me help you."

"Alright."

"Tell me your story."

Awkwardly, in fits and starts, the confusing tale came out. With the parts about the Fallanassi removed, and the huge gap of memory between the kidnapping and waking up on the Sith Raider, and leaving out the part about being initiated as a Sith, it was not a very coherent narrative. But it was enough.

"We need a lineman's rig. Funny word, isn't it?" Dije had become fascinated by words during her study of Ancient Sith and Galactic Standard. "I wonder why it's called that?"

"We could hijack one of those, too."

"We can't kill the lineman. Firstly it would be wrong—I only want to kill the bad guys. Secondly, it would be noticed. Capture the lineman. And then I'll have to—to—" Dije and Kerruke had been talking in their native tongue, and Dije found she could not even say sarav, let alone do it to an innocent workman. Even though she had done it to Luke. And, of course, a roomful of people at the SVN studio. "No. Send someone else undercover. Send one of the men to get a job as a lineman. The company will give him all the tools and knowledge he needs."

Luke suddenly bent and put a hand to his forehead. "Ow!"

"You put your shields back up," Ongreya said softly. "That pain was you pushing me out. I realize this process can be a little scary."

Luke nodded. "I've let my students into my mind, but only to look around, not to change anything. And I know them."

"We can wait. Talk more. You can get to know me, watch some of my previous subcasts. Would you like to see my ship?"

A ghost of a smile touched Luke's stained face. "There's an appeal no pilot can resist."

"Come then." They walked out to the landing area.

Luke swung up through the hatch and into the workroom, and peered up toward the cockpit.

The ship's official name was something only the Barabel could pronounce, a souvenir of its days as an anthropological researcher's ship. It was an old-fashioned vertical design, slender and pointed as a needle, resembling an obsolete chemical-rocket missile. The cockpit was in the nose, and was reached by a ladder going up the ceiling of the sleeping compartment. The bed was not useable while the rocket was parked on a planet with any appreciable gravity, since it was positioned vertically in the shaft of the cylinder. The idea was to save room, and also to encourage the anthropologist to live among the natives. In between the sleeping compartment and the engines was the work room, which had computer and holorecording equipment original to its scientific mission, mounted on gimbals so it could be oriented vertically when the ship was on the ground, and horizontally while the ship was in space. Like the early spaceflight rocket it resembled, the ship had no gravity generators.

"I call it Old Pointy. It's probably not the most elegant name for a healer's ship, but the others names I've tried out just haven't stuck."

Ongreya had not had to do much to the holorecording and editing equipment to make it suitable for subcasting to the Hobgoblin, as subcasters called the Holoweb. Nor had she had to upgrade the computer; it was old, but had originally been designed for serious scientific study, and was overpowered for simply uploading edited subcasts. She did not store subscriber lists on it or conduct any secure banking transactions; all those functions were part of the subcast site, and were handled by a subcast hosting company. Ongreya had installed one new piece of technology in her ship, though: the holographic navigation system.

Luke climbed up the ladder and squeezed into the cockpit. Once in the seat, he was facing straight up toward the clouds like the earliest spaceflight pioneers. The pilot's seat was so well padded it felt exactly like an acceleration couch, and Luke wondered if Old Pointy actually took off like a rocket. He'd love to light the engines and take it for a ride.

Ongreya, clinging to the ladder behind him, indicated a tacked-on box to the right of the dashboard. "That's the holo navcomp."

Luke turned it on and saw a photographic style representation of the galaxy, rather than the stylized map he had expected.

"To find the system I want, I reach in and grab it. Try it out."

Luke thought of Coruscant and reached in. Star systems magnified in size as he narrowed down the sector he moved his hand through. He tried to grab the Coruscant system and missed. He tried again, this time reaching for Dagobah, and missed again. "I can see this would take some practice."

"Most humans find it confusing," Ongreya said. "Aquatic species like Changelings and Mon Cals take to it right away."

"So when you fly toward a call, you see a visual image of the world you're looking for, but not the planet's name or coordinates."

"That's right."

"That's how you managed to navigate to Yavin 4 without knowing you were putting down at the Jedi Academy. And without smearing yourself across hyperspace."

"Yes." Ongreya sounded amused. Her natural form did not really smile, but it was there in her voice.

"For a while there I thought you plotted hyperspace jumps with the Force. Which I wouldn't do unless I had no other choice. But you just pick the system and the computer calculates the jump." Luke shut off the holo navcomp. "It's really an amazing system. How does Old Pointy fly? Does it go bidirectional in atmosphere, like an old rocket ship?"

"It does. Would you like to try it?"

"I'd love to."

"Let me tell you all about the controls, then, since there's no way to take a passenger."

Luke listened eagerly, picking up the concepts right away. Ongreya backed down the ladder and sealed the hatch, and cleared out of the way of the engine blast. Luke flipped on the controls, ignited the engines with a roar and took off.

This was an entirely different flight experience than taking off in a gravity-controlled ship. It was like a fighter craft, but more so: more subject to the effects and feelings of takeoff, more primitively engaged in the visceral process, more exciting. Luke laughed out loud when he cleared the atmosphere and the stars appeared, and he went abruptly weightless. He circled Yavin 4 several times and then put the ship back down, flying backwards, tail to target and totally relying on instruments. Luke let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when he shut the engines down.

"Now that was a ride."

He slid out of the cockpit and emerged to find most of his students and fellow teachers watching the landing area from a safe distance. Luke trotted over to Ongreya grinning. "That was fun! Thanks, Ongreya. It's a truly unique ship."

"You're welcome." Ongreya smiled a self-satisfied smile. Luke was beginning to know and trust her; he was happy, for the moment; and he was re-engaging in one of his favorite activities, flying. There was more to psy-healing than the kinds of revelations her subscribers wanted to hear. This was important too. Ongreya was very pleased with her progress for today.

Imei-Sim was undercover and in link with his brother Dai-Oni. He was just coming back from a break and was primed to begin the telepathic charade. Dai-Oni was a solar system away, plugged into the Marathon network with a lineman's rig, a ship that manipulated the relay stations dotted throughout the void. With that ship, Dai-Oni could appear to be calling from anywhere.

Mr. Veerterst the Neimoidian walked by, trailed by the droid Arpu. Imei-Sim turned to a Hammerhead walking near him and asked, "What does Arpu do anyway?"

"I don't know, but management seems to like him."

The computers all restarted as he walked down the row.

The Lady was right. The arguing customers, the people who could never be pleased, the nebulous rules, the constant judgment calls that always seemed to be wrong, the unfairness of being dinged for doing what he was told. They made him strong in the Dark Side. Strong with helpless rage.

Imei-Sim didn't care about his conformance bonus. But like all the Sith, he was trained to perceive criticism as an attack. A Dark Lord of the Sith didn't do anything so mundane as to dock a minion's pay when he was unhappy with him. A Dark Lord called the lightning and tortured the target of his anger with powerful electric shocks. There was no one here who could or would do that to him. And the Lady was pleased with his true work, the work of tracking down her enemies through their billing records. But even so, the impersonal stat report on the computer left him sweating if any of his metrics were off, and speaking to a floorwalker in person about his exception time made him shake in his Sith boots.

He sat down at his station and logged in from break, and turned on the station holocam. Most interstellar customer service centers didn't bother with images of their staff, and used only plain hypercomm links, but Fuholo, or Marathon, or Marathon Now Together With Fuholo, or Marathon Fuholo, or whatever they were calling the company this week, was in the holonet business, so of course they wanted to present their product as so routine and necessary for business customers that they would use it to talk to customer service reps.

"Back to the Non Paying Idiots," he remarked to Ted-Ted the Gungan at the next station.

He needed to go on the next operation. He needed to pour out his darkness in the freedom of combat. Imei-Sim felt like his head would explode if he didn't kill someone soon.

There was a pop, and smoke came from his computer. He logged out. He was going to have to submit a clickit ticket and exception time again.

"What is with my computer?" It malfunctioned every time he got mad. Surely he couldn't be doing that, could he?

It seemed like a very long week to Imei-Sim Arr. On the weekend, he went aboard the Sith Raider and they headed for the enemy's secret fortress. He was happy to be back amongst his own kind and heading for battle, but he was still crackling with pent-up fury.

He went to his bunk, planning to pull a sheet over his head until it was time to kill something, only to find his brother and Ojaste doing fire play in the bunkroom. She stood in an X, leaning on her hands against the metal shelf of Dai-Oni's bunk, which was the one above Imei-Sim's. Dai-Oni drew lines of fire on her with a specialized implement.

Imei-Sim stalked out. He needed to kill something now. Now! A whir and a glint of metal appeared in his fevered vision. He stretched toward it like he was going to strangle someone and fried the butler droid.

Imei-Sim stared at the droid. Then at his hands. That was lightning. That was the Noble Gift. But he was far past the age when it usually manifested. Most Lords broke through in adolescence. Most of the people who carried the potential of the Gift never broke through at all.

"I guess I'd better find a tattooist." That was Lady Kun's voice, dry and pale like a fine yellow wine.

"My Lady…" Imei-Sim went white.

"The rules don't apply out here. Out here, we can work together."

"I don't mean to encroach on your territory."

"I don't have a territory. This is Kerruke's ship. And that was Kerruke's droid. It's up to her if you have to replace it. Personally I think the droid was a great choice. If you'd tried to ground it out in the ship you might have shorted out something vital. We could all be stuck in hyperspace forever. Keep that in mind the next time you need to ground out, and you will. Nobody gets control of it on the very second try. Now, do you want to party now or after you get your tattoo?"

"Uh—after. Thank you, My Lady."

"Call me Dije. You're your own Lord now."

"Alright, um, Dije."

"Oh, by the way. Just until you have control of your powers, if you need to gesture or touch someone, curl your fingers inward toward your palms like this. It prevents accidents."

"Thank you, My—Dije."

At last the Sith Raider reached the area of operation. They strafed the compound from the air. It was a tricky maneuver, since the laser cannon was on top of the ship. The Dark Lady copiloted and handled the guns.

After all the vehicles on the ground were destroyed, Sith Raider swooped in for a landing. Dije led the crack troop of mercenaries into the drug factory, cutting open the door with her blood red lightsaber. Behind her, the Sith fanned out and attacked anything that moved. With the Force, the Sith pulled heavy bags of pharmaceutical ingredients down on top of the factory workers, pinning them in place. With the Force, they knocked blasters and fletchette carbines out of the hands of the guards.

Like most Sith, Imei-Sim used a rote recitation as a tool to call the Force, but instead of the names of people he hated, Imei-Sim recited, "Interstellar Dual Electromagnetic Network. Clear Dual Magnetic Augmentation. Now together in the hybrid holocomm!"

It was not a bloodless victory. Many of the enemy fought back even after being disarmed, and there were several casualties. A few of the mercenaries collected minor damage, but the worst was merely a broken nose from a hulking Gamorrean's fist.

Dije and the mercs lined up their prisoners in the landing zone. Dije sent a few men through the factory to collect whatever information was to be had, and any incidental money or weapons that might be lying around, and then, with a shot from the ship's gun, they torched the factory. It blew with a hellish blast and a chemical stink, and then burned like a star.

One by one, Dije walked down the line of prisoners and ripped the drug-making knowledge from the minds of the workers. They fell over keening, clutching their heads.

Some of the Sith stirred. One younger fellow even squirmed. They were fine with killing, but sarav was a special evil. The mercenaries knew their business, though, and did not look away or give the prisoners any opening to escape.

"We have ten minutes before their next memories will start," Dije announced to the mercenaries. "We'll be gone by then, and they won't remember us. Everybody back aboard."

Ongreya's species, known as Changelings, had a true form, and a Changed form. Their true form was green and vaguely froglike, but bipedal and basically humanoid. Each Changeling had only one Changed form, which followed the basic outlines of their true form.

"When I chose my Changed form, in childhood, I copied a holodrama actress from my favorite show."

"So that's why, instead of just looking like a blonde blue eyed human, you look specifically like a young Tinda Chaen."

"Yes. My species developed this power to kill a human child and take his place, so that in times of famine Changelings would co-opt another species to provide food for our young. But somewhere along the line we had to develop intelligence in order to pass for human, and that led to an awareness of morality. And that led to the development of our religion, and the Psy Healers."

"I think I'm more comfortable with your true form, Ongreya."

"Oh? Most humans prefer to look at an aesthetically pleasing human seeming."

"Green is a good color for a Jedi."

"A Jedi? You want me to stay here and study at your Academy?"

"Yes. You have great potential."

Ongreya pressed her hands together thoughtfully. "I admit it's an exciting possibility. But I have my work. Patients who need me, and subscribers to whom I am obligated."

"Do you go to space every time you hear a call?"

"No. I can choose not to go to a call. It's not a need. I hear thousands of calls. I only answer a few each month. I have to spend at least a few days on each one, counting flight time. I focus on the lurid. If my show were boring, no one would subscribe to it. I wouldn't be able to keep myself in hyperdrive fuel. If I tried to help everyone, I couldn't help anyone."

"Then you could stay here long enough to learn to use more of your natural talent in the Force, besides the Psy Healer gift."

"Tell you what. I'll stay if you let me create a Jedi subcast."

"A what?"

"I'll bet lots of people are curious about the Jedi. How they're trained, what they can really do, what are the limits of their power and how are they kept from abusing that power. There are people out there who will hang on your every word because you're their hero, and there are also people who are really nervous about having dozens of potential Emperor Palpatines running around the galaxy. I think they'd find the truth reassuring. I know I do."

"Alright. Yes. But it's up to each one of the other students whether or not they appear in your show."

"It's a deal."

They had a genuine serial killer stalking the employees and associates of the Sex and Violence Network. They beefed up security, but only around their top people. Ordinary employees were given 'panic buttons' to use to call security, or, if the employee's activities were legal, the local police forces. But the buttons also turned on holocams.

The Sex and Violence Network had a brand new, exclusive subcast: Serial Killer.

A dozen times, the Serial Killer logo of the death's-head dripping blood flashed onto screens across the galaxy. Eight times, a desperate chase through cities or countryside ended in a kill. Four times, instead of killing, the Serial Killer merely counted coup. He left the victims clawing at their hair, or scales, and unable to remember what had happened after they hit the panic button. Only twice, a droid- operated camera glimpsed a shadow across its track before the camera and droid were destroyed. The Serial Killer was an anonymous figure in a black cape, who was always gone before the security forces (and live- operated cameras) arrived.

Hareng moved around the latest victim, who had been beheaded. There was no blood. Zooming in on the stump, Hareng got good shots of the seared flesh, cauterized as it had been cut.

In case anyone watching at home missed the significance of that detail, Hareng cornered one of the security men and got a recording of him stating, "Lightsaber wound. That doesn't necessarily mean the Serial Killer is a Jedi. It could mean the Serial Killer killed a Jedi. Or even bought a saber. This is certainly a vicious killing, though. That I'm certain of."

Ratings soared.

Luke concluded a class in sensing ill intent, and dismissed the students. Ongreya lingered. "Can I put on my healer hat for a moment?"

"Do you ever take that thing off?" Luke asked.

She laughed. "I guess that's not a good way of putting it anymore, is it? Not now that I'm live on the Jedi subcast all the time, except when I'm asleep. Let me switch channels, then."

"OK."

"I could tell, during this class, that you were doubting. Having second thoughts about your ability to sense ill intent. You haven't talked about how you came to be kidnapped, yet."

Luke expelled air from his nose and turned away slightly, thinking.

"I saw her following me. The woman at the party. I scanned her for ill intent, and didn't find any."

"Why were you not able to detect the ill intent of those who kidnapped you?"

"Because I wasn't strong enough. Because I wasn't good enough."

"You are a very powerful Jedi. Are you sure more power is answer?"

"What else is there?" Luke asked. "I suppose it's possible they didn't have ill intent, from their perspective. Different morality."

"A moral system in which kidnapping is alright?"

Luke shrugged. "Anything's possible. But no, I meant that what I picked up from her wasn't malice. They did what they did to please others, not because they were evil. Selflessly serving evil; I don't know if that's even possible. I'd be sure whether that can be done if I'd met Mara back when she served the Emperor. Of course, I'd be dead, so that wouldn't help much."

"That would be Mara Jade, the smuggler?"

"Yeah. I keep mentioning her, don't I? She had no part in any of this. I don't know why my thoughts keep rounding on themselves and coming back to her."

Ongreya smiled. "I'm sure you'll figure it out."

It was sunset on Coruscant. Outside the window, the pink light of evening competed with the glow of thousands of lights from buildings, air vehicles, and hovering antigrav billboards.

"Don't point," Anakin said to Jacen. "Dije says pointing isn't polite."

"I'll point your ribs for you," Jacen threatened, backing up his threat with rib tickling. Jaina joined in mercilessly. Although they were studying to be Jedi, but they were still children.

"Stop it stop it stop it stop it!" wailed Anakin.

"Don't pick on your little brother," Leia called from the next room. The Solo children were on one of their rare visits with their parents, and Han and Leia had been spending as much time with them as they could, but at that moment the kids were playing a console game while their parents talked with their uncle and Master.

Luke had decided to take the kids home for a week because Ongreya had decided he was as healed as she could make him, and the rest he would have to complete himself. She had taken off in Old Pointy to answer another call. She had promised to return and finish her training. Luke couldn't help but be nervous about that, given what had happened when he made a similar promise, so he had decided to take a vacation.

There was a loud thump and Jacen yelled, "Sithspawn!"

Anakin said, "Dije says that's not a nice word. Hey! Stop iiiiiiiit!"

Then there was an even louder thump.

Han and Leia looked at each other and started to get up, but Luke called out, "Don't make me separate you," and there was total and sudden silence.

Leia looked embarrassed, as if just being the mother should have made her better at controlling the children than the head teacher at the school at which they had lived most of their lives.

Han raised an eyebrow. "How do you do that?"

Luke smiled, "They know I can pick them up without line of sight. They wouldn't get much playing in floating ten feet in the air for the next hour. It only took doing it once."

They heard some whispers punctuated by shhhh! And Jacen's urgent whisper, "Will you shut up about Dije already. She's gone. She's not coming back."

Han asked, "What ever happened to Dije anyway?"

Luke could not tell him about the Fallanassi. Their existence was still a secret. Nor could he tell him Dije had become a Jedi. She had not hid that from the crew of Sith Raider, but she considered them her personal gang, the followers a Dark Lady naturally attracted. If anyone in the government of Sith-ta found out she was a Jedi, going home could be lethal. The only people who knew Dije was a Jedi were those who called her My Lady (the crew of Sith Raider)—or Darthe-nir (Luke). And he was certainly not about to mention getting initiated as a Sith.

"She's flying around the galaxy with a red lightsaber on a quest of personal vengeance."

"Oh. Sorry, Luke," said Han. "I know you had high hopes for that one."

"I still do." And if that implied that he hoped she would return to the Order, that was fine.

Leia asked, "So what are you going to do about her?"

"Nothing," Luke replied. "I support her campaign, in fact. She's set out to completely destroy all knowledge of how to make Purple Tears."

"Oh. Oh, Luke." Leia was rarely at a loss for words.

"You don't have to say anything. I know it was all over the Holonet News."

For a few weeks, it had been impossible to get away from the news clip of Luke with his face stained, saying, "Of all the people in the galaxy, I ought to be able to defend myself," under the headline SKYWALKER SHOCKER. Even in the isolation of the Jedi Academy, there was still a news feed on the corner of the holocomm every time he powered it up to receive a call. He had eventually turned off the headline function, but he still had been unable to avoid the story, since nearly everyone who called was a well-wisher wondering if he was alright.

The media, both the tabloid and mainstream varieties, had run bits of Ongreya's Psy Healer subcast, which apparently they could do simply by paying a preset media fee; it was part of the way subcast interfaces were designed. But none of them had run stories on the healing, only the crime.

Luke broke the uncomfortable silence. "Ongreya really did help me. I'm alright now. Or, as alright as I am about all the other really awful things that have happened in my life, anyway. And thank you both for not calling and asking about it."

Leia said, "I knew you were safe. I could feel it."

Luke nodded. "This isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to me. It doesn't even compare to finding out Vader was my father. That made me rethink my whole identity."

"Can I ask you something?" asked Han.

"Of course. Always."

"How is Dije's war against Purple Tears a quest of personal vengeance? Did they get her too? Are they targeting your students?"

"No. The students are safe. Don't worry about that. Dije rescued me."

"Oh. Reverse damsel in distress, huh?"

Luke's voice went harsh. "Track that a moment, Han. My teenage female apprentice came to rescue me. When I was hopped up on Purple Tears. I can't remember what happened, but she does. And it turned her into—" Luke broke off. Actually, it had turned her into a Jedi. But the rest of the galaxy knew her as the Serial Killer. But that was a secret, too, since the SAVN did not know the Serial Killer's identity.

Luke thought of a hundred things to say, each worse than the last. It turned her into a person who terrified hardened Sith mercenaries? Who killed like a war droid and ravaged minds like Kyp in the depths of his service to Exar Kun? But it was OK because Luke was glad someone was doing it, so he wouldn't be tempted to do it himself?

Luke settled for, "So what's the latest gossip on Coruscant?"

Ever the diplomat, Leia immediately supplied an inane story involving Borsk Fey'lya the Bothan Senator and a poltergeist.

Light shifted oddly in the girl's hotel room. Ojaste's eyes were fully adapted to the darkness of the chamber, where she had sat at the table for hours now, after relieving the day guard.

Silently, Ojaste stood and went toward the outer wall, where the disturbance seemed to center. She was a shadow in the night, a snake-headed goddess crowned with the Fallanassi style braids she had been keeping herself awake by practicing. She practiced everything the Lady taught her. Among those things was the art of illusion. Ojaste could not project it as Lady Dije could, but she recognized it when she felt the current flow around her.

A door opened in the outer wall, where no door had ever been.

Ojaste stood in the way of whoever was about to come through it. She put out her arms and raised a wall of Force between the door and the former slave girl. The Force field popped and spat as someone blundered into it.

Rene sat bolt upright in her bed and screamed a little girl scream.

Someone tried again to slip through the Force field, and was repelled. Then there was a ripple in the interior wall going into the next suite of rooms, and again on the other side.

Rene shrieked, "Ojaste! The invisible people! They're over here!"

Ojaste dropped the Force field and whirled toward little Rene, letting go of the Force and summoning what little she could hold of the rushing waters of the White Current. She could not project illusion, but she could detect it, and disrupt it. With a grimace and a burst of light like a static discharge, three Fallanassi appeared in the room, their illusions of invisibility dispelled.

"Shhh," one of the women said. "We won't hurt you. We're here to help you. We'll take you to a new life, with others like yourself. The slavers will never find you again."

Rene jumped out of bed and clung to Ojaste. "I don't need to hide," the girl cried. "I have real Sith Guards."

"That's right," Ojaste assured her.

"Guards can't heal you. We can. Come with us."

"I'm not sick," Rene said.

"Wouldn't you like to live in a community of women who care for each other? Women who've had the same experiences as you, and who understand you?"

"Will these women teach me to kick butt?" Rene asked.

"Violence is not the way." The glittering Fallanassi woman might have looked like a fairy tale heroine coming to save the little girl—except that Rene was from Sith-ta, and her fairy tales usually ended with the death of the protagonist.

"Here," Ojaste whispered, handing something to the child.

Even in the faint city light coming through drawn curtains, Rene's teeth gleamed as she smiled wickedly. "Nobody touches me now. I'll zap you if you come any closer. Get out and never come back!" The girl brandished an electric stunner, an old fashioned weapon, and only lethal by occasional accident, but perfectly legal to own and use on this civilized world.

"Yes," Ojaste whispered. "Even a commoner can hold the power of the Lords in the palm of her hand."

The Fallanassi tried again. "You don't need weapons to stay free, and out of the hands of men. We will protect you."

"Ojaste will protect me. And teach me to protect myself. Because the Lady loves me."

Startled, the Fallanassi woman replied, "Of course, the Goddess loves everyone. But force is not part of the Dream, nor is The Force. Do you not hunger for the gentle touch? For lightness?"

"Get OUT!" Rene shrilled. "Get out get out get out!"

The three women in the long gowns turned and exited by the normal door.

Rene sobbed, and Ojaste knelt and took her in her arms. "You did it, Rene. You drove them off."

Rene hugged her fiercely. "You saved me."

"I barely helped at all. You defeated the invisible people. You are strong and brave. You'll kick the butts of the slavers in court tomorrow too, just exactly like you did here, tonight: by telling the truth and not backing down. You stuck to your guns and you can do it tomorrow too. I'm proud of you, Rene."

"Nobody's ever said that to me before."

"Then Nobody's a fool."

Rene smiled and wiped her eyes. "What will happen to me after the trial?"

"Viceprex Fiolla will find you a home. Someone to take care of you until you're old enough to do for yourself."

"What if I don't like them?" 

"Then call the Viceprex, or the Lady, or me. We'll always help you. You're free now, Rene. You don't have to stay with bad people anymore."

"Can I keep this?"

"Sure. Don't sleep with it, though. It's best not to handle a weapon unless you're completely awake, and sober, though I suppose that won't be an issue for a few years yet. Remember it, anyway."

"I will, Ojaste." Rene set the stunner on the nightstand and climbed back into bed, although she did not close her eyes for a long time.

Boopboop Thweeeoooot.

"What is it, Artoo?"

The droid rotated its silver and blue dome and rolled off down the corridor. Luke followed the faithful droid down the stone corridor of the Academy. He had been 'home' on Yavin 4 for some time, and the initial awkwardness of trying to resume his teaching had faded away to nothing, just like the marks on his face had disappeared. Ongreya had returned and well on her way to becoming a Jedi, and only very rarely now did she guide Luke's healing in any way. She had told him more than once that whatever was left to do, he would have to discover himself.

All in all, he agreed with that assessment. He needed to do something. To DO something, take some action, not just wait around for the actions to be taken by others, no matter how well. But what action?

Luke had a prickly feeling that he was about to find out, as he followed Artoo into the communications room. Even after all these years, there were still obvious marks on the floor where computer equipment had been hastily removed when the Rebels evacuated this base. That exodus had not been the scrambling near-disaster that the evacuation from Hoth had been, but the Rebels had not had any reason to try to avoid scratching the flooring when they vacated. The old Massassi Temple had not been rented, after all.

Waiting for him was a hologram of Dije Kun. She had acquired a proper set of black mercenary fatigues, which made the silver lightsaber on her belt very obvious. She wore her hair in Fallanassi braids, plaited with red ribbon.

"Hello, Luke. How are you?" The bland pleasantry seemed freighted with dire import.

"Well. Well enough. You?"

"I'm down to the last one on my list. But he's elusive. Sith Raider is a fast ship, but his is faster. We've tried several times to catch him. We can't go after him on land, the planets he flies between are tightly controlled Corporate worlds with Espos everywhere, and unfortunately his connection to the target information is perfectly legal."

"So what's your plan?"

"Can I borrow your X-wing?"

"No. Yes. Wait. My ship can be part of your operation, as long as I'm in it."

Dije shook her head, stirring her snake-like collection of braids. "The plans calls for a cloaked fighter, made invisible with the art of illusion."

"I can do that."

"As well as me?"

"Maybe not, but can you fly an X-wing as well as I can?"

Dije fidgeted with her belt for a moment, then smoothed her hands decisively. She looked off to the side, speaking to a crew member. "Send him the co-ordinates for the rendevous."

"The Board is very impressed with your work on the slavery ring case, Fiolla. This is the kind of dedication and vision we're looking for. Congratulations. You've got the open seat."

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm delighted to accept."

In the infinite void, bits of matter flocked together. Small chunks tumbled in asteroid fields. Smaller still, mists of matter congregated into nebulae. Larger collections coalesced into planets, stars, black holes, galaxies.

Not all the lightless shapes in this young star system, faintly lit and harshly shadowed by a hot blue sun, were simple space rocks or icy cometary fragments. One was a fighter lying doggo in the commercial spacelane, at the bottleneck where ships leaving the system had to pass to avoid the asteroids.

A small transport ship dove crazily at the gap. Its shields shed space dust and minor rocks and red streaks of coherent light coming from behind. The ship in pursuit had the lines of a yacht, with a laser cannon turret slapped on the top.

The transport's disproportionately large engines blazed with white fire, running over capacity. They were pulling ahead, winning the race. Again. They were winning the same race they had run against Sith Raider three times before.

"Not this time," said Luke. "Artoo, power up the ship."

The droid lit the engines and brought all the systems up from standby. Artoo's dome swiveled to sight the other ships past the cockpit canopy. The robot sent an intercept time estimate to the green monitor of the astrodroid translator inside the X-wing.

"Thanks, Artoo." The controls went live under Luke's hands, and he steered to shave seconds off the intercept time. Bright lances of destruction shot at the transport from two directions now.

The transport's pilot had an inhumanly fast reaction time. He broke and skimmed the asteroid field, and the yacht and the fighter gave chase. The transport did not quite enter the field, and neither did Sith Raider. They ran alongside it as if they were terrain-following on a planet.

They approached the Knob, a section of the field where the space debris was pulled farther into the system by the gravity of a nearby planetoid. The transport and Sith Raider snapped away from the hazard.

Luke stretched out with his feelings. The Force confirmed what his pilot's instincts had guessed: the transport was going to pop back under the Knob on the other side. "That's the last mistake you'll ever make."

Luke plunged directly into the asteroid field. Dodging with Jedi reflexes, he wove through the tumbling meteors at speed, and shot out the other side ahead of the transport.

The transport looped and sped toward the planetoid. Sith Raider followed, but was slightly less maneuverable, and was losing ground. Luke poured on the speed and caught up and glued himself to the transport's tail. He fired, and scored a hit. It was absorbed by the shields.

The transport juked and jinked but Luke stuck right behind him. He fired again and again. The transport's shields started to fail in spots, and the hits blackened the white metal. A geyser stream of escaping air signaled a hull breach.

The enemy ship made for port, a small settlement on the planetoid. Luke did not want to involve innocent bystanders. "Enough," he said aloud. He had been toying with them, playing pilot games for his own amusement. But he did not need to defeat his opponents with superior flight skills. He was a Jedi Master. "A Jedi Master and a Sith," he whispered. There was no limit to the power he could command.

Luke reached out in the Force and found his quarry, a Malastairian pilot whose spirit sang with triumph. Luke reached into the alien body and stopped his heart.

"I am more powerful than any Jedi."

The transport crashed into a construction site, snapping steel girders and sending them wheeling off into the light gravity.

Luke circled, and saw a form emerge from the wreckage. He strafed the survivor as he ran for the shelter of partially finished steel buildings.

Luke set his ship down, popped the canopy, and leaped out. He hit the ground running with his lightsaber in his hand.

"Ha-HAAAA!" The enemy would never escape him now.

No one would mistake that wordless cry of exultation for the deep calm of a Jedi battle meditation. This was razor edged berserker glee.

Luke extended all his senses and darted into the partially finished structure. He felt multiple dangers at every turn. No matter; his prey was running, and he would have him.

He rounded a corner and ran into a wall of sound. His steps faltered and he felt as though someone was trying to stop his heart as he had done to the enemy pilot. Sonic weapon, he realized. He hunted for the source of the sound, reached out through the Force and pulled the speaker off the wall.

The sonic attack stopped. Momentarily, Luke sagged forward, panting, supporting himself with his hands on his legs. He recovered quickly, and was off again, moving more slowly and carefully now.

He felt the one he hunted react to something in great surprise, and then the emotions ceased abruptly, although the man's life had not winked out of the Force. Luke traced his quarry to an avenue between steel skeletons of future buildings. The man lay in the yellow dirt of the planetoid, unconscious.

Luke eased around the corner, approaching cautiously. A surge of danger came to him through the Force a second before the danger manifested, and Luke leapt back out of the killing field. Broad circles of blue light danced over the area.

Stun beams. Luke peeked around the corner, looking for the blasters. He found three, and ripped them down with the Force. Slowly, he crept back into the avenue. No blasters fired. He had gotten them all.

Luke went to the unconscious man. He ignited his lightsaber. Luke lined up and started to swing, but let the blade drift to a stop. No matter how much he wanted to complete this quest—no matter how much, he admitted to himself in the privacy of his mind, he wanted revenge—he could not kill a helpless, unconscious person.

So what now? Luke wondered. Wait for him to wake up? Then kill him?

A roar came from overhead, and Luke looked up, coming to a ready guard stance. It was Sith Raider on full power descent, coming in for a landing. The ship cleared the four storey girders but still swirled the dust in the avenue.

The sight of Sith Raider reminded Luke that Dije had told him that when she could avoid killing those on the list, she erased the formula from their minds. Luke decided that was what he would do with the unconscious man.

He reached into his enemy's mind and did not find an enemy. The man knew the formula, yes; but he was not connected to the SVN, or the drug manufacturers, or the slavers. He was a police scientist.

Luke hesitated. This man would not manufacture the drug. Luke sifted through the unconscious man's thoughts until he found what the man intended to do with his knowledge. Then Luke knew that this man was potentially more dangerous than the whole SVN combined. The police scientist was planning to put the formula of the drug on display, as part of his testimony at the slavery ring trial. The formula was going to go into the public record, from where it would propagate through the Holoweb until there were so many copies the knowledge could never be contained. Above all that must be prevented.

As carefully as he could, leaving as much of the rest of the man's mind intact as he could manage, Luke cut out the Purple Tears formula and destroyed it.

A sudden silence told Luke the Sith Raider had landed and shut off its engines. He reached out in the Force for life forms and passageways, intending to plot his course to the ship and meet Dije and her gang. That was when he felt the nonhuman presence. There was someone else here.

Luke centered on the alien mind and went to seek it, lightsaber still glowing and humming like an excited demon ready to drink blood. Luke walked into an area with a lattice wall, and sensed some sort of danger behind it. Before he could figure out what it was, his lightsaber flew out of his hand.

It deactivated when it left his grip, and passed through one of the holes in the lattice. It was not the Force that had pulled it away. Luke felt a horribly strong tug on the little metal clip by which his lightsaber attached to his belt. "Electromagnet," Luke said out loud in realization. Then red lines of annihilation criss-crossed the area.

Luke jumped straight up and grabbed onto one of the steel girders. The blasters tracked him, and he jumped to another part of the structure. Barely ahead of the killing bolts, Luke made an impossible jump—impossible for anyone but a Jedi—to another building, ran around a corner and started to relax, only to find himself face to face with a droideka.

The ancient war robot had its shield and both guns live. It was about to fire, and Luke did not have his lightsaber to deflect the shots.

"LUKE!" Luke! Dije's voice. Both in his ears and in his mind. His head snapped around, and a moment later a small object sailed toward him. Dije's lightsaber.

He activated the red blade just in time to intercept the droideka's attack. Red beams bounced back at the war droid, to be absorbed by its shield.

Then the Sith arrived. Dije stretched out both hands toward the droideka. She cast lightning, and the war droid exploded in a cloud of smoke and sparks. Its shield went down, its arms lowered, and it clanked to motionlessness.

"The planetoid is a trap," Luke said. "Magnetic wall for catching lightsabers. Area effect weapons. A trap for a Jedi."

"A trap for the Serial Killer," said Dije. "It's got to be the SVN. Sith Raider is jamming all transmissions, so if they're trying to subcast they won't get anything."

"Good. There's someone here. Our true enemy. The scientist was just as surprised by the traps as I was. The enemy's this way." Not bothering to give Dije's red lightsaber back, he sprang off into the construction site.

Behind him, he heard Dije order, "Fan out. You two, circle around. Establish a perimeter." Then Dije followed him.

There was one finished area in this construction zone. A small comm shack, sprouting antennae like some building-shaped alien lifeform. Inside was a humanoid with a bank of screens, on which he watched fixed cameras.

Hareng jumped up when Luke kicked in the door. He snatched up a handheld holocam.

Looking at the big, obvious camera, Luke missed Hareng pressing a button on what appeared to be a necklace, but which was really a still camera. Hareng got one good shot of Luke, black cape billowing, a red lightsaber in hand.

Luke chopped the holocam in half. The two pieces fell to the floor. He whirled the saber, preparing to cut off Hareng's head.

Behind him, Dije shouted, "No!" She ran into the shack. "Let him go. He doesn't know the formula."

"He's one of them. The Sex and Violence Network."

"You don't have to kill him."

"Maybe I just plain want to," Luke said.

"It's not necessary," Dije argued. "Luke, this won't help anyone. It's not justice. It's not even vengeance. If you kill just because you feel like it, you will no longer be a Jedi."

For a long moment, Luke did not answer, or make a move.

Only Hareng's long habits as a combat photographer kept him from trembling.

One of Dije's men came to the doorway, but did not crowd into the shack.

Finally, Luke asked softly, "Will I be a Sith?"

"No," Dije said firmly. "Remember the day I showed you the true nature of the Force. What is the first lesson and the last?"

Luke thought a moment. His memories of the initiation were chaotic, due to the confusion of his mental state at the time. When he thought of the answer, he seemed to straighten. "The Force is life." He shut off the red lightsaber.

"That's right," Dije affirmed. She walked up to him and took the lightsaber hilt from his hand. "It's over. Come on." She turned him around with a hand on his arm, and Luke started walking away, back toward the other Sith.

Dije looked back over her shoulder at Hareng, gestured, and wiped out Hareng's short term memories, erasing the past half hour as if it had never been.

That was the conclusion of the Serial Killer series. There was no holo of the final hunt. But there was one still picture. And a wrecked trap, and two people with their memories pulled from them. The still was the exciting find, because it clearly showed the shadowy figure's face at last. Black cloak, red lightsaber, asymmetrical face: the Serial Killer was the Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker. So the galaxy believed.

The End

This is the end of the Subcasters series. Dije's adventures continue in the Queen of the Sith series.


End file.
